Als die in London gefeierte Bühnenschauspielerin Alexandra Ludd vom plötzlichen Herztod ihres Mannes erfährt, eilt sie sofort zum Familienwohnsitz aufs Land. Bald muss sie erkennen, dass in ihrer Familie nichts so war, wie sie gedacht hatte.
A savagely satirical tale of marital revenge. Madeleine wants revenge: Madeleine wants to be remembered: Madeleine wants love. Who doesn't? Madeleine is ex-wife of and chief persecutor to Jarvis, the architect. Why not? She hates him. Hilary is their daughter, growing fatter and lumpier every day under Madeleine's triumphant care, witness to the wrongs her mother suffered. For Jarvis has a clean new life with a clean new wife, Lily, and a nice new baby, Jonathan. The furniture is polished and there is orange juice for breakfast. Jarvis is content, or thinks he is, fending off Madeleine's forays as best he can. Jarvis has a part-time secretary, too, Margot, now the doctor's wife, unremembered from the days of her youth. Margot, unacknowledged wife and mother, accepting, tending, nurturing his children and her own, complaisant in her lot. Until Madeleine, hurling out her dark reproaches from the other side of violent death, uncovers new familial links in the disruption she creates.
Bernard Bellamy has done a deal. He has sold out to the devil, in all of its forms. In return, he is promised that all his wishes will be granted, all his desires fulfilled. One of them, young Carmen Wedmore, is proving to be quite a challenge.
The author of the novels Life Force, The Hearts and Lives of Men, and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil offers an irreverent, wildly funny, and unerringly persuasive answer to the ever-enticing question: If I ruled the world, what would I do? "A wickedly funny, multilayered treatise on feminism, marriage, sex, journalism, and the class system".--People.