Mantrapped

Second riveting volume of Fay Weldon's memoir, plus a witty, relevant novella. In this, the second volume of her autobiography, Fay Weldon, one of the most significant feminists of her generation, reveals how deeply she has been trapped by the men in her life. Auto da Fay ended with a thirty-two year old Fay newly single and about to embark on her career as a writer. Mantrapped takes up the story of her as a thirty-something woman, struggling with single-motherhood, a career in advertising when women did not have careers in advertising, her launch as writer and novelist despite the discouragement of those around her. Most significantly, she gives a startlingly candid insight into her thirty year marriage to Ron Weldon, the husband who forced her into therapy, and who eventually asked for a divorce on the grounds of an astrology reading and died on the day their papers came through, leaving her unsure whether she was widowed or divorced. Like few other writers, Fay has an ability to sum up a feeling, and indeed a life, in a single sentence and to let us know the truth not just about her, but about ourselves.
The facts of her life are remarkable enough -- it is the manner in which she tells them that make them breathtaking.