The Life and Loves of a She Devil

by Fay Weldon

Book Overview

This is not a book for everyone, but its admirers are vigorously enthusiastic. For example: Rhoda Koenig in New York Magazine, who calls it "...a novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345323750
• Release Date: August 1985
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.7" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

the life and loves of a she=devil

i saw the movie on t.v. years ago, and just about went to everybook seller on line to see if there was a book. finally found a copy at the sun city az library, of all places), i hated taking it back. just enjoyed the heck out of both the movie and book. roseanne barr and merle streep couldn't have been a better choice. i laughed my way thru both the movie and book. am ordering my own copy today, to keep.any book that fay weldon writes is a winner.

Very different from the movie.

The book was good I would recommend it to anyone that likes it a little dirtier! Not fifity shades of gray dirtier but like it’s 45 year old aunt that’s been around the block but not Descriptive about it. Like you know she’s seen stuff but she’s just grazes the top of it but you get the idea. The movie adaptation is is the flowery version of the book. Where as the book Ruth is a she devil!

Stalker

Ruth's husband, Bobbo, is Mary Fisher's accountant. Mary Fisher is a romance novelist. He is infatuated with her. The narrator knows the financial details of Mary Fisher's life because Bobbo carries the accounts home. There is self-deception and there is wishful thinking. The narrator is not pretty and she is clumsy. The evening Bobbo's parents visit he stays home. He has claimed that he doesn't intend to leave Ruth, he is just in love with Mary Fisher. He does leave Ruth and the two children when the couple quarrels in the presence of Bobbo's parents. Subsequently Ruth, the narrator of some of the chapters, burns her residence and delivers the children to Mary Fisher and Bobbo at Mary Fisher's tower. She masterminds the release of Mary Fisher's mother from her spot in an old people's home. She is the founder of an employment agency and uses it to put people into contact with Bobbo at his accounting firm. She acquires accounting skills and surreptiously enters his office at night and moves client money in and out of his personal accounts. She becomes the housekeeper and lover of the judge handling his criminal case which results in a long term of incarceration for Bobbo. She connives with plastic surgeons to change her appearance to that of Mary Fisher. This is rollicking good fun. It is droll. It is a nice critique of stereotypical thinking.

brilliant novel of revenge!

This book "The Life and Loves of a She-devil" by Fay Weldon is about a woman who doesn't look good and she wants to revenge her husband who left her with other woman. She gives up her children, love, and even her own body in order to revenge her husband...... This is a wonderful novel that completely reflects to the relationship between wife and husband in today society and the situation of women's lives. After you start to read more and more, it's really hard stop it and keep you turning pages until the end .I do not recommend this book for everyone because this book has a unrelenting dark side and not everybody would like it, but I think this book is good for the woman who has faced hard luck caused by other man or have the same situation as the character of the book does.

Excellent!

This is truly a modern fable, not to be taken seriously, but to be enjoyed for the sheer myth. Fay Weldon takes us down the dark, steep, painful (literally) slope of stark raving madness. Ruth's tale of scorn is bitter, excessive, but ultimately liberating. It is a lesson for the "normal/healthy" scorned women to TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE, CHANGE WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED, THEN MOVE ON! Fay Weldon is a sensational writer, her words and insights are searing because they are so true. The British mini-series of the same title shown on American t.v. in the 80s (the A & E network), brought the book to life. The casting was right on target and the mood as dark and painful, as Ruth's story. Bravo, Ms. Weldon -- job well done!!

Fay weldon is a genius!

I find this book complete genius and one of the best feminist books I have ever read. Ruth's hideous looks are her husband's excuse for treating her like an animal, and eventually leaving her for an ultra-feminine and successful woman. Ruth can see Mary Fisher's shallow and materialistic success and character, and she knows that they are what society respects the most. Ruth doesn't, and shouldn't accept this cruelty, for she knows that there is no justification for her husband's and society's ways, and she has to get even. Ruth hasn't got anything too lose, she doesn't have any money, respect or public status, therefore she can plan her revenge without any regrets. Ruth's revenge on her unfaithful husband Bobbo is clearly about getting back at society, and it's ridiculous demands of women. Ruth gives up motherhood, love, humanity, and even her own body in order to show the world and Mary Fisher and Bobbo in particular, that beauty, respect and popularity can be achieved by anybody.

The most astutely fashioned tale of revenge since Moby Dick.

I think too many readers & reviewers have overlooked the sheer scope of Ms. Weldon's attack in this, my favorite novel. More than just a roadmap to the vengence of one woman against the man and mistress that cause the disintegration of her life, Ruth by the end, becomes the avenging angel of all who have ever felt unwanted by a world consumed with the transient virtues of beauty, taste and wealth. She decimates, with the depraved passion of a Bosch-like demon, all of the "sensible" notions of love, mother-hood, respect for beauty and humanity that society foists upon the less attractive of its people, specifically its women. By the end of this novel her attack broadens beyond the simply banal cruelties of man and begins to rattle the very gates of heaven itself to force a confrontation with Nature and God. Ruth's gripe is with God and not man, for she sees Him as the real culprit behind the suffering she, and all women, must endure. Her ultimate victory, and the perversity of its coming is summated in the last line of this book(In my opinion, one of the best final lines ever written). One of the sharpest minds writing today, Ms. Weldon brings a lucidity and vigor to her portrait of the modern beauty-obssessed culture, that is by turns bitingly humorous and strangely touching; for all of the bile that she unleashes throughout the novel, Ruth is a character that we can fundamentally claim as one of "our" own. I think that this "our" goes way beyond the small group of feminist women who have had Weldon claimed as one of their own. For me she is the truest torch-bearer for anyone who has ever felt not beautiful, intelligent, graceful or genteel enough to earn respect in our culture. A true masterpiece, this novel is Weldon at her delicious best and is worthy of any comparison to that other great novel of revenge, "Moby Dick". Is Ruth Patchett the modern-day equivalent of Ahab? You decide.