Chalcot Crescent

Vintage Fay Weldon: satrical, political and fantastical. Fizzing with intelligence, observation and wit

It's 2013 and eighty-year-old Frances is listening to the debt collectors pounding on the front door of No.3, Chalcot Crescent. While she waits for the bailiffs to give up and leave, Frances writes. She writes about the boyfriends she borrowed and the husband she stole from Fay. She writes about the Shock, the Crunch, the Crisis and the Bite, about NUG the National Unity Government, about ration books and National Meat Loaf (suitable for vegetarians). She writes about family secrets...

The problem is that fact and fiction are blurring in Frances's mind. Are faceless assassins trying to kill her younger daughter? Are her grandchildren really plotting a terrorist coup upstairs? What on earth can NUG have against vegetarians?

And just what makes National Meat Loaf so tasty?

FAYE WELDON was brought up in New Zealand. She read Economics and Psychology at the University of St Andrews, and worked briefly for the Foreign Office in London. She later began to write full-time. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews in 1990. She lives in Dorset with her husband, the poet Nick Fox.