Mrs Fytton's Country Life [Paperback]

Angela Fytton (éée Lister) is the perfect wife and mother. Involved and interested in her husband Ian's business, capable mother, utterly together housewife and--even after two children--demon, cellulite-free lover. So it's rather a shock to her system when she's dumped for the younger, determinedly helpless dentist Belinda (Binnie), who Ian meets when she trips over her stilettos in front of him at a conference.

But Angela is a very resourceful woman and she's determined to get Ian back. Abandoning her two standard-issue selfish teenagers Claire and Andrew to their father and "fluffy" new stepmother (or more accurately, vice versa), she quits West London for the pure, spiritual country delights of Somerset; as she explains to Ian, Claire and Andrew over dinner, "You know, ancient forces drawing me back to my roots and all that ...".

Here, she believes, the people are unspoiled, honest and steeped in tradition. Or so she thinks. What is it that Wanda and Dave-the-Bread next door have got to hide? What's elderly Dr Tichborne up to with his binoculars? Why doesn't Sammy the pigman bother to wear his false teeth? And is the new young vicar really screened by the shrubs when he exercises starkers in the vicarage garden?

From Mavis Cheek, prize-winning author of Pause Between Acts, Janice Gets Sexy and Three Men on a Plane, a laugh-out-loud tale of self-discovery, women's history (check out the epigraphs at the start of each chapter), the comforts of tradition and joys of progress--and the benefits of getting it wrong. Just occasionally. --Lisa Gee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Angela Fytton (née Lister) is the perfect wife and mother. Involved and interested in her husband Ian's business, capable mother, utterly together housewife and--even after two children--demon, cellulite-free lover. So it's rather a shock to her system when she's dumped for the younger, determinedly helpless dentist Belinda (Binnie), who Ian meets when she trips over her stilettos in front of him at a conference.

But Angela is a very resourceful woman and she's determined to get Ian back. Abandoning her two standard-issue selfish teenagers Claire and Andrew to their father and "fluffy" new stepmother (or more accurately, vice versa), she quits West London for the pure, spiritual country delights of Somerset; as she explains to Ian, Claire and Andrew over dinner, "You know, ancient forces drawing me back to my roots and all that ..."."

Here, she believes, the people are unspoiled, honest and steeped in tradition. Or so she thinks. What is it that Wanda and Dave-the-Bread next door have got to hide? What's elderly Dr. Tichborne up to with his binoculars? Why doesn't Sammy the pigman bother to wear his false teeth? And is the new young vicar really screened by the shrubs when he exercises starkers in the vicarage garden?

From Mavis Cheek, prize-winning author of Pause Between Acts, Janice Gets Sexy and Three Men on a Plane, a laugh-out-loud tale of self-discovery, women's history (check out the epigraphs at the start of each chapter), the comforts of tradition and joys of progress--and the benefits of getting it wrong. Just occasionally.Lisa Gee

Angela Fytton - wonderwife, supermother, bedroom vamp and business partner - has been unceremoniously dumped. Like many a good wife before her she has been swapped by her husband for a younger model. Now, divorced but determined, she rediscovers the iron in her soul and decides to fight. She moves to the country leaving her entirely selfish teenage children with their father and his sweet new bride, and she waits. One day, she knows, her husband will return. Meanwhile she yields herself up to the notion that country life is pure and good and that country people are next to angels - and finds this is very far from the truth . . .

What were my reasons ?
What were my reasons for rewriting the classic tale of Woman's Revenge?

Oddly enough I didn't think that I had. I wanted to write about a married woman who felt she had put nearly everything into her marriage and was feistily devastated by the terrible shock of losing her husband to another (younger) woman. Angela Fytton wanted her husband back. It was less a revenge and more a strategy to achieve that end. She was wise in a rather baleful way. She knew that new love can be fragile under fire. A lot of women who have been dumped at a certain age say they don't really want revenge (though that, as incidental, must be sweet) they want their man and their marriage back. But all gains are losses (and vice versa)--in order to get her husband back she mus break up another family--a little moral conundrum for her to work out. And all losses are gains--to lose her husband is to gain a freedom (even if she thinks she doesn't want it) and in among the farce and the frolics of what takes place in the country when she moves there is a journey towards wisdom for her too.

Mavis Cheek was born and grew up in Wimbledon. She began her working life at Editions Alecto, the contemporary art publishers. After Alecto, she attended Hillcroft College for Women from where she graduated in Arts. After her daughter Bella was born, she began her writing career in earnest; journalism and travel writing at first, then short stories, and eventually, in 1988, her novel Pause Between Acts was published by Bodley Head and won the She/John Menzies First Novel Prize. She is the author of thirteen novels novels including Mrs Fytton's Country Life, Janice Gentle Gets Sexy and, most recently, Amenable Women which was described in The Times as 'a brilliantly funny, warm, intelligent read'. She now lives and writes in the heart of the English countryside..