Trouble

By Fay Weldon

Book Overview

Annette Horrocks has every reason to be happy. She lives in a lovely London house with her devoted husband, Spicer; her first novel is about to be published; and after ten years of trying, she is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067084148X
• ISBN13: 9780670841486
• Release Date: October 1993
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

EVERYBODY'S GOT TROUBLE

This is a slim volume to hold so much satire, yet it does. Followers of Fay Weldon's tragic/comic chronicles of dour domestic bliss will find the author again coming through with wry. Living in London with her husband, Spicer, and their two children from former marriages, Annette Horrocks appears to have everything any woman could wish - her first novel will soon be published and she is expecting a baby. But, in true Weldonesque fashion, this idyll unravels. Possessing a sharp eye and an equally sharp pen, the author seems to have more of a following among women than men. That should be the case with Trouble, yet Weldon surprises as it isn't only a woman's story. The author of some twenty novels and short story collections, Weldon has the ability to make the banal sharply bright and everyday experiences stand out in bold dramatic relief. She's not a sexist - she skewers the foibles of both men and women with equal aplomb.

Amazing

Despite the fact that the characters in "Trouble" are mostly more or less normal post-modern professionals going throgh typical identity and relationship conflicts, it does not feel at all like a "soap opera" or other fodder for daytime television. Weldon could easily teach Seinfeld and Tarantino a thing or two about gritty, realistic dialogue and making the trivial fascinating. Annette seems like such a real person that I could scarcely put the book down and read it in about two days. Spicer's pseudo-Jungian New Age obsessions were also so hillarious that I had to keep reading just to see how irrational,deluded and self-obsessed he could become.

Acidly-written, from the heart.

This novel, entitled "Affliction' in the UK, was torn apart by most critics over here when it first appeared. The reason? It was too close to the truth, which is a rather odd criticism of a novel. Weldon's own marriage of 30 years had ended in a bitter divorce that was more or less carried out in public. In my view this actually adds fire to the book, which is breathtakingly unputdownable. The mental torture, the phoney therapy, the increasing impossibility for the female protagonist of distinguishing fact from fiction, the negation of memory and the horror of isolation ring absolutely true, and make for a gripping read that will pierce the heart of anyone who has ever experienced the breaking-down of a relationship. Through all of this, Weldon maintains her inimitable ironic detachment and her blacker than black sense of humour. A fiery, miniature masterpiece.

Scathing commentary on male/female relations.

Very witty novel written almost entirely in dialogue, which show the lengths a psychobabbler husband, Spicer will go to to destroy the psyche of of his wife, Annette. Weldon again demonstrates wittily and savagly the way the war between the sexes has not ended with Bluebeard. "Best" friends, neigbors, mothers, etc. all have agendas of their own, and not kind ones, either. Spicer goes so far as to tape record Annetes phone calls to his office, and then play them on the loudspeaker for the benefit of his secretary, Wendy. Wendy is quick to tell Annette, I support you Annette, even if you do have a history of emotional problems. Spicer is brilliantly drawn as a mind-destroying monster to end all monsters, but the books ending is weak, and unsatisfying, without the typical rallying of the heroine and her "revenge-getting" tactics one finds in so many other of Weldons books. This ending is a very limp, rather sad solution to Annetes problems, but a very funny read until then. Try Worst Fears, also by Weldon, for a satisfying ending to a much-abused heroines retaliation on her "nearest and dearest"?

Makes your adrenaline go way up!

The way hubby Spicer re-interprets everything his worried wife tries to say or do to save their - up to now - normally happy marriage as an assault to himself, the way he turns around and acts sweet the minute she either does what he wants or seems ready to leave him, only to mingle stones among the pralines and ruin it again, so that in the end she almost belives everything he insinuates makes your skin crawl and your adrenaline go up. On the other hand this is a book without the typical Weldon finish of the woman's revenge, which helps to make her books so enjoyable, despite the bitter criticism of (not only male) behaviour, that many women recognize from their own experience.