Chalcot Crescent
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Review
"* 'Really rather bonkers. Exceptionally good, but bonkers' - Daily Telegraph * 'This potent brew of social comment, dystopian satire, vicious comedy and vintage Weldon wisdom is a marvellous ride' - The Times * 'Sinister, clever, funny and vintage Weldon. Why hasn't she been made a Dame?' - Independent * 'Weldon back to her best - an apocalypse-very-soon-from-now delivered with her trademark warm-hearted cynicism and bone-dry wit' - Daily Mail * 'Sparkles with wit and acute observation... a clever jeu d'esprit' - Guardian * 'Reads like a first novel... it's so fresh and vibrant and funny. The funniest dystopian novel I've ever read. And I don't think it's going to date' - Boyd Hilton"
Product Description
This is a wickedly sharp, history-bending, cosmos-colliding novel from one of Britain's most iconic authors. Meet Frances, Fay's might-have-been younger sister, an unreliable narrator who bends history and blends universes to create a sparkling and prophetic portrait of a once and future Britain. It's 2013 and eighty-year-old Frances is listening to the debt collectors pounding on the front door of Number 3, Chalcot Crescent. While she waits for the bailiffs to give up and leave, Frances writes. She writes about the boyfriends she borrowed and the husband she stole from Fay. She writes about the Shock, the Crunch, the Crisis and the Bite, about NUG the National Unity Government, about ration books and National Meat Loaf (suitable for vegetarians). She writes about family secrets...The problem is that fact and fiction are blurring in Frances' mind. Are faceless assassins trying to kill her younger daughter? Are her grandchildren really plotting a terrorist coup upstairs? What on earth can NUG have against vegetarians? And just what makes National Meat Loaf so tasty?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book after reading a review that claimed the book was "extremely good, but really rather bonkers". My mother had been persuading me to read Fay Weldon for ages, so I thought I'd give this one a go. I can tell you that the reviewer was exactly right! As a whole, the novel is brilliant - very funny, lots of sharp one-liners, and some wonderful insight on what life was once like, and what it might be like in the future. And the plot is pretty strange... The book is told from the point of view of Frances,a sister that Fay never actually had, who is now aged eighty and is living in the near future (2013). Frances has clearly lived a life very like Fay Weldon's real life - become a famous author, married lots of times, been something of a feminist, etc - while her sister, the fictional 'Fay', is a struggling cookery writer living in Australia. I'll have a go at outlining what happens, though it might be better to just read the book without knowing the plot, as there are surprises around every corner.
Frances is trying to hide from the bailiffs who want to take her Primrose Hill house in lieu of her debts. All the banks have collapsed during the Crunch (sound familiar?!) which was followed by the Shock, the false Recovery and then in 2013 the Bite. No-one has any money, except maybe the sinister-sounding government, who have sealed up everyone's back doors, and have CCTV on every street corner. Food is scarce and everyone lives off National Meat Loaf, which may (or may not) have something to do with government scientists and human meat...
At the same time as telling us all of this, Frances (aged eighty) is recounting her life story, which is hilarious as well as being fascinating, as we are (I'm pretty sure) supposed to guess that this is really based on Fay Weldon's own life. There are lots of interesting and funny musings on things like feminism, art and fate; some great descriptions of what life was like in various decades (she characterises the middle-classes in the seventies when she shouts at her daughter 'Venetia, time for supper, your avocado is ready!')
And, simultaneous with the 'real time' (Frances hiding from the bailiffs, worrying about her grandchildren, talking to her daughters) and the 'past time' (Frances telling her life story), Frances also becomes less and less sure what is real and what is not. So you get this sense of sliding in and out of reality - perhaps because of her old age, or maybe just because she is a writer and used to fiction. Sometimes Frances tells you when she is writing fiction and when it's fact, other times its up to the reader to figure it out.
All of this adds up to a really satisfying read. Its darkly funny, sharp, witty and insightful, as well as being completely original, which is a rare treat these days. I think it would be a perfect book for a bookclub as there is just so much to talk about: unreliable narrator; power of government; fact v fiction; old age; memory; does fate exist; parallel universes; feminism; the role of the past in interpreting the present. Phew! such a lot in a small book!
Frances is trying to hide from the bailiffs who want to take her Primrose Hill house in lieu of her debts. All the banks have collapsed during the Crunch (sound familiar?!) which was followed by the Shock, the false Recovery and then in 2013 the Bite. No-one has any money, except maybe the sinister-sounding government, who have sealed up everyone's back doors, and have CCTV on every street corner. Food is scarce and everyone lives off National Meat Loaf, which may (or may not) have something to do with government scientists and human meat...
At the same time as telling us all of this, Frances (aged eighty) is recounting her life story, which is hilarious as well as being fascinating, as we are (I'm pretty sure) supposed to guess that this is really based on Fay Weldon's own life. There are lots of interesting and funny musings on things like feminism, art and fate; some great descriptions of what life was like in various decades (she characterises the middle-classes in the seventies when she shouts at her daughter 'Venetia, time for supper, your avocado is ready!')
And, simultaneous with the 'real time' (Frances hiding from the bailiffs, worrying about her grandchildren, talking to her daughters) and the 'past time' (Frances telling her life story), Frances also becomes less and less sure what is real and what is not. So you get this sense of sliding in and out of reality - perhaps because of her old age, or maybe just because she is a writer and used to fiction. Sometimes Frances tells you when she is writing fiction and when it's fact, other times its up to the reader to figure it out.
All of this adds up to a really satisfying read. Its darkly funny, sharp, witty and insightful, as well as being completely original, which is a rare treat these days. I think it would be a perfect book for a bookclub as there is just so much to talk about: unreliable narrator; power of government; fact v fiction; old age; memory; does fate exist; parallel universes; feminism; the role of the past in interpreting the present. Phew! such a lot in a small book!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've enjoyed many of Fay Weldon's Books and know that she can be very imaginative and this book is certainly full of surprises. It's an amalgam of bits of the author's life; mixed with dystopic visions of what the future will be like after the upheavals caused by the credit crunch; and nostalgic reflections about what life was like in the good times. The book is set in 2013 when Britain is a totalitarian state and is loosely held together by the narrator, Frances's, complicated interactions with her extended family and ex-husbands. It's a bit like Orwell's 1984, but written in Weldon's spritely style and full of humour. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as some of her earlier books as it flitted about a lot with disconnected chapters and so many characters coming and going that I sometimes couldn't remember who was whom.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Yet another example of Fay Weldon's remarkable individuality and originality as a writer. Is there anything she doesn't know about human life? I doubt it. In this book she flits from idea to idea like a Tinkerbell spreading stardust that turns into our own fears, hopes, possibilities and dreams, with a nowness, a foreverness, and a yesterdayness, and she does it with laughter and strength, candour and a pointing finger that says, `I warn you!' Luxuriously Fay Weldon. A very clever novel.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An intelligent, genre-defying read.
In many ways, this is a decent book. With an interesting, original, and chillingly prophetic slipstream milieu, an insightful and acerbic main character, and some fine writing... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Rupan M
a vision of things to come?
I was reading this when the London riots happened and the book seemed to be foretelling what would happen afterwards. So I waited until after the riots to read it to the end. Read more
Published 8 months ago by misty
Another Crowd Pleaser
Fans of Fay Weldon, will have read many of her books, and so will know what to expect. They will not be disappointed, the witch has cast her usual spell, and pleasure is the... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Lewis Whiting
"I am not cynical. I am just old. I know what is going to happen...
Fay Weldon, the immensely popular British author of twenty-nine previous novels, creates an unusual variation of metafiction in this new novel. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Mary Whipple
Chalcot Crescent
This is a very funny book, a fast read, rolls along effortlessly and is full of biting humour. This is Fay at her best. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2010 by J. Hennessey
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