Worst Fears

By Fay Weldon

Book Overview

From the hilarious opening to the satisfying final conflagration, Fay Weldon's Worst Fears is a taut, scathing revelation of the nature of marital intimacy. When Alexandra returns from her stint on the London stage to find her husband mysteriously dead of a heart attack and her female friends ominously invested in smoothing out all the complications of the tragedy, she begins to be suspicious. At first she attributes this to grief, then to paranoia. But she soon finds herself starting to crack, crank-calling her friends' psychiatrist, attacking people with kitchen chairs and breaking into their houses, searching furiously for evidence to confirm her husband's rampant adultery and her own worst fears. "A snappy whodunit of the heart....one of Weldon's best novels yet." -- The New York Times Book Review; "With a dash of murder mystery and a wink at Isben's grim tales of ruined marriages, this splendid and spiteful novel shows Fay Weldon to be in as fine form as ever." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer; "A hundred years hence, if people can still read, Weldon's books will likely have the unblunted edge of Jane Austen, an unsentimental Baedeker guide to sexual manners in an ill-mannered age. Fay Weldon breaks taboos like tape at a marathon, and she hasn't stopped running yet." -- Los Angeles Times.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871136821
• ISBN13: 9780871136824
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Weldon At Her Best!

The brilliant Fay Weldon skewers and punctures hypocrisy is this wonderfully sly first-person narrative. Protagonist Alexandra Ludd is the only real, genuine, honest human being in this disturbing but ultimately triumphant (in a way!) tale of adultery/infidelity, backbiting, lies, and false friendship. Alexandra, a beauty and successful actress, is in a sham of a marriage, but she's the only one who doesn't seem to know it. Her late husband Ned, a failed theater critic consumed by jealousy of her success -- she makes the money, he spends it -- porked all available females in the environs of their country cottage to get even with her for the failures of his professional career. He lived a devious double life and was unfaithful to her in nasty and sundry ways much worse than mere physical infidelity. Additionally, he maligned her character and twisted the reasons for her behavior. Alexandra is a great character, and I was rooting for her all the way, even when it seemed that all had fallen apart like Humpty Dumpty, never to be put together again. It's a terrible aspect of human nature, but success/beauty/talent are resented by those who lack any of these three attributes; Weldon exposes it for what it is, from the obsequious pseudo-friends to the horny brother-in-law Hamish, who, feigning assistance to the grieving widow, is just itching for the opportunity to get into her pants; to the country folks' envy -- there is a wonderful cameo of a resentful child-minder, the servant of everyone's nightmares -- of the city folks, who seem to have too much and they too little. It's a witty page turner typical of Weldon's best work. Am already casting the film with Angelina Jolie as Alexandra, Brad Pitt as Ned, Heath Ledger as his brother Hamish, Helen Mirren as the older, Slavic femme-fatale Vilna, Julianne Moore as the duplicitous best friend and neighbor, Abbie (playing against character), et al. Am only stumped by the worst of the bunch, the dumpy lump/unfaithful wife Jenny Linden and the unethical therapist/counselor Leah. They are perhaps the most contemptible of the rich and subtle cast of characters. Weldon has the typical counselor's mealy-mouth platitudes down pat, but the manipulative Leah is evil to boot. A terrific read that would make a fabulous film.

A loss of innocence.

An actress, seemingly in a wonderful marriage, gradually learns the truth after her husband dies of a sudden heart attack. She emerges unbowed, if less innocent. The prose is Weldon at her best: simple, but sparkling with sharp edges. While the book reflects Weldon's sardonic view of human relationships, it is light, humorous, and even affirming at the same time. Worst Fears is the opposite of those books with unsatisfactory endings: not only does the plot eventually make sense, but the behavior of the characters, which at times seems contrived, also comes to make complete sense.

another little gem

fay weldon is the most honest person alive when it comes to describing human nature and the funniest i've ever read. she is like a dose of cold water over the sappy tv sitcom type of books that make the best seller lists. her tart tongue can skewer even the most complacent hypocrite, and the most sanctimounius new-ager. she runs the gamit. she is very funny as she reveals peoples true natures and when the heroine begins to explode in bewliderment and rage, well, who can blame her for stealing her husbands mistress's phone diary and calling up a plumber and instructing her to go to the mistresses house at 600am. trust me a more sancitmounous other woman never existed, and the ending, i wont spoil it for you but it is a satisfying ending. fay weldon, thank you for telling the truth,and in such a funny way!

Very enjoyable and quite unnerving!

I have read only 2 or 3 Fay Weldon's and this is definately as good as Puffball which I also really enjoyed. Worst Fears made me feel quite twitchy. Everything seems to be fairly simple when Alexandra's husband, Ned, dies but as the next few days go on an awful catalogue of discoveries unfold. Makes you think that things are not always what they seem.

Alexandria's journey of self-discovery ... painful, poignant

Weldon uses an interesting disjointed story-telling style to expose Alexandra's husband's infidelities. Alexandra, an actor starring in a production of Ibsen's A Doll's House, is summoned home due to forty-nine-year-old Ned's sudden death from a massive heart attack. Alexandra works her way through the devastating realizations that nothing about the marriage was as it seemed to reach her empowered conclusions