Review
A weekend in the country, a pas de quatre choreographed with icy elan by the High Priestess of Tease - the author of Female Friends and Remember Me. Hosts: rich Hamish and Gemma, he nearly wizened, she nearly matronly, he tasteless and active, she tasteful, mutilated (one finger missing), and confined to a wheelchair (hysterical paralysis). Guests: Victor and Elsa, he a greedy, wife-shedding antique-pusher, she an "abundantly lovely" youngster uneasy in society but sure of her outgoing sex-and-romance posture. Hamish and Gemma proceed to play Get-The-Guests. Gemma tells Elsa, in tantalizing pieces, the story of her maiming ("My warning to wantons"), a probable fabrication set in a swinging London jewelry salon, laced with hints of sadistic perversions, and annotated with scalpel comments on Elsa's relationship with Victor. Hamish bargains with Victor - antiques in exchange for Elsa's night-time services - and some mate-swapping occurs, leaving Elsa perhaps pregnant (the hosts' plan all along?) and a totally compromised Victor primed for the neatly staged teatime reappearance of his wife. Weldon clearly despises each member of this quartet - even the pathetic Elsa, who ends up alone, headed home to Mum, sexually de-revolutionized - but that doesn't stop her from lavishing attention on them, turning them on their respective spits, showing us each of their facades as she lightly chars the surface. The present-tense, aphoristic narration is grand (except for an occasional borrowed cuteness like "ample promise of pneumatic bliss"), the dialogue is read-aloud perfect, but the earlier Weldon glimmer of something-real-to-say about women and men has been lost in the artificial lighting and sweeping glee of a Noel Coward gone utterly, too-too decadent. (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
