Chalcot Crescent

Meet Frances, one-time national treasure, former famous writer... and Fay Weldon's might-have-been younger sister.



It's 2013. Fay has long since emigrated (wouldn't you, if your imaginary sister stole your future?), and eighty-year-old Frances, her glory days gone, is savouring a slice of National Meat Loaf in her once-magnificent house. Communism's dead, capitalism's fallen, and now government bailiffs are banging on her door...



How did it come to this? When did CiviCams and powdered egg replace gossipy dinners and chocolate mousse? As Frances tries to make sense of her story, fact and fiction begin to implode. What secrets are her family hiding? Is her skunk-smoking grandson plotting revolution upstairs? And just what makes National Meat Loaf so tasty?



Fay Weldon was brought up in New Zealand. Creator of the slogan 'Go to work on an egg', writer of the first ever episode of Upstairs Downstairs and current Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, Fay is best known for her novels Praxis, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil and Worst Fears. In 2001 she was awarded a CBE. She has eight children and stepchildren and lives on a hilltop in Dorset.



Really rather bonkers. Exceptionally good, but bonkers



This potent brew of social comment, dystopian satire, vicious comedy and vintage Weldon wisdom is a marvellous ride



Sinister, clever, funny and vintage Weldon. Why hasn't she been made a Dame?



Weldon back to her best - an apocalypse-very-soon-from-now delivered with her trademark warm-hearted cynicism and bone-dry wit



Sparkles with wit and acute observation... a clever jeu d'esprit



Reads like a first novel... it's so fresh and vibrant and funny. The funniest dystopian novel I've ever read. And I don't think it's going to date