Chalcot Crescent

by Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon in top a wickedly sharp, history-bending, cosmos-colliding novel that tells the story of Frances, Fay's never-born younger sister. Its 2013 and eighty-year-old Frances (part-time copywriter, has-been writer, one-time national treasure) is sitting on the stairs of Number 3, Chalcot Crescent, Primrose Hill, listening to the debt collectors pounding on her front door. From this house she's witnessed five decades of world history - the fall of communism, the death of capitalism - and now, with the bailiffs, world history has finally reached her doorstep. While she waits for the bailiffs to give up and leave, Frances writes (not that she has an agent any more, or that her books are still published, or even that there are any publishers left). She writes about the boyfriends she borrowed and the husband she stole from Fay, about her daughters and their children. She writes about the Shock, the Crunch, the Squeeze, the Recovery, the Fall, the Crisis and the Bite, about NUG the National Unity Government, about ration books, powercuts, National Meat Loaf (suitable for vegetarians) and the new Neighbourhood Watch. She writes about family secrets...The problem is that fact and fiction are blurring in Frances' mind. Is it her writer's imagination, or is it just old age, or plain paranoia? Are her grandchildren really plotting a terrorist coup upstairs? Are faceless assassins trying to kill her younger daughter? Should she worry that her son in law is an incipient megalomaniac being groomed for NUG's highest office? What on earth can NUG have against vegetarians? And just what makes National Meat Loaf so tasty?

Genres: Fiction, Dystopia, Science Fiction, British Literature, Novels, Literature, Science Fiction Fantasy

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Fay Weldon CBE was an English author, essayist and playwright, whose work has been associated with feminism. In her fiction, Weldon typically portrayed contemporary women who find themselves trapped in oppressive situations caused by the patriarchal structure of British society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon

Reviews

[Maria]

Decided to dnf this one at page 80. I'm trying to get better at dnf-ing when a book feels like a chore to read. This one reminded me of Atwood, just not as good. It's not a bad book, but I am kind of a mood reader, and this just wasn't something I wanted to read just now. In addition to that, reading reviews of it gives me the impression that it's almost plotless, with a lot of side character stories that goes nowhere. More drawing up the picture of a life than anything else, and it's not a life I was interested in reading about.

The story so far: an elderly lady is sitting on the stairs with her grandson, while the authorities are banging on her door. It's a dystopian light with feminism as a prominent theme. While giving us small glimpses into what has gone wrong with society (this world is different, but recognizable in that it shows us how things could have turned out), she reminisces about her life, her family, and all her complicated relationships. If I had finished this book, I predict that I would have given it 3 stars.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dystopia! Feminism! What more do I need!

No, really. What more do I need? Because this was missing something.

Parts of this book were incredibly awesome. The fact that it's an alternative universe version of the life of a sister Weldon never had is appealing to me, so appealing. Let's take that life that never was and make a story out of it. Let's set it in a time that's pretty much now, today, and recognizable in different ways, yet so different that we can't recognize it yet... but we can recognize that it's close to happening.

I think there's a glimmer of genius here.

This is the first book by Weldon that I've read which is sort of surprising in its own right because she is considered (like Margaret Atwood or Joyce Carol Oates) to be a "feminist writer". You think I'd have read all 29 of her books and had serious thoughts about all of them. But this is the first. I picked it because of the dystopian premise and also (yes) because of the beautiful blue, Europa Editions cover. I don't often go by the cover, but those Europa Editions (like the NYRB covers) turn me on in ways most books do not.

I'm fascinated by the storyline but in the end felt cold. Not in a dystopian-world-lends-itself-to-a-cold-feeling way, like one would hope. But in a I'm-not-sure-the-author-was-convinced-in-what-she-was-saying way. Which is a huge bummer. (Note: Here comes to really unfair part of my review...) When I read Atwood, there is an aloof feeling I get, like I can't quite reach the characters but yet I can relate to some of them in really surprising ways. I feel like Weldon was going for the same approach here - an antiseptic, cold bathroom floor tile, hard look at these characters. It just didn't quite reach the same level as Atwood's writings. See? Unfair. I know.

I'm not so disappointed that I refuse to read more by Weldon. I think she has something that I want or need when I read, but this particular book might just not have been the one, despite all signs pointing otherwise.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit I have not always appreciated Fay Weldon’s writings over the many years of her notable career. However, this latest novel is intriguing on so many levels. Set in 2013, in England, the central character is 80 year old Frances, who is based on the baby Fay’s mother miscarried when the author was a toddler. Why certain personality and behavioral traits were ascribed to Frances and what, if any, connections to Weldon’s family are never explained.
The novel is both a biting satire and a love story, a story of bright, talented, artists and writers, scientists and activists, of living well and facing eviction over a 50 year span of time. The stories of friends, family, lovers, children, and grandchildren reveal important truths and moments of epiphany that shape Frances’ life and also continue to connect the dots among many of the important people in her life. The details of life in 2013 and the years that led to that (i.e., described as Shock, Crunch, Squeeze, Recovery, Fall, Crisis, Bite and National Unity Government) are too close to our own reality to dismiss as fiction.

[Jan Millsapps · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the best Weldon novel in years - styled as an octogenarian might write her mishmash of memoir and fiction - and confusing the distinction between them. Sometimes repetitive in recalling her complicated past (as if possible dementia is setting in). When she thinks she's uncovered a plot to overthrow the dystopic government (at the hands of her own grandchildren), she can't be sure whether she's just made this up or if it's really happening. Clever, sassy, classic Weldon.

[Patsy Whiteman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was a good book, but I found it hard to read. Yet another one which I think is maybe a bit too smart for me. Lots of references to the cold war and history that I'm not sure I picked up on but I still enjoyed it. I'm not sure what was going on, found out this was intentional, she's an unreliable narrator. I think my internal monologue might be an unreliable narrator?

[Rebekka Steg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feminism and dystopia? I should've loved this, but it was just rather boring and repetitive.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading this a while ago, but stopped after 20 pages, deciding I wasn't in the mood for it. This time I persevered, and discovered I probably won't ever really be in the mood for it.

The book did have some good qualities. The writer has a talent for creating complex webs of relationships, and considering what complex blend of emotions feeds it. The premise of the book also appealed to me: the idea of writing an imagined life for a twin that never lived, and using it to imagine a whole alternate timeline works well. And I am usually fond of unreliable narrators.

Where this fell down for me was the feel of it. I never felt much sympathy for the narrator. The best description I can think of for her is 'acidic'. She reminded me of people I've met before and struggled to get on with.

I was also not convinced by the world building in this. Since it predicts a near-future, it has the common sci-fi issue of having to build a plausible world out of the current one, and explain how the world got from A to B. In this book, the description of the new world was relatively vague (and complicated further by the unreliable narrator), and there was only a rough outline of how this new world came about. It all made enough sense that I could accept it and follow the story, and it was clear that the point of it all was more to serve as a backdrop for character drama than a proper vision of the future, but it still felt insubstantial.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if events of the past few years turned out a little different? What if someone who wasn't ended up being so? How would the world be different? Fay Weldon takes on these questions and blurs the lines of perception and reality, fiction and history in the clever, engaging "Chalcot Crescent."

Frances, the narrator, is an 80-something woman in the London of the near future, where the sociologist/psychologist-run National Unity Government (or "NUG") has taken over. Not as touchy-feely as it sounds, this government has its own rules for society. But the book's not really about that; it just forms the backdrop. Frances -- a fiction writer, presented in the intro as the sister Fay lost when her mother had a miscarriage -- moves back and forth between the past and the present, detailing her lovers and friends and family history as her grandchildren plot against the NUG and she's stuck in her house on Chalcot Crescent.

What is Frances imagining and what is real? Are her children everything they seem? And what's really in National Meat Loaf since it's "suitable for vegetarians" -- or is it? Less a cautionary tale than a glimpse at what we might have to get used to, "Chalcot Crescent" is at turns wryly funny and wistful, gently and honestly exposing the various weaknesses most of us would demonstrate in the face of changes we don't fully understand.

[Pjr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book - never liked Fay so much when I was younger and she seemed more radical .... I guess I am not as black and white in my opinions any more and have mellowed, as has she :) - glad she has turned to Faith, makes a very good read - very funny and chillingly true to what happens in our societies - highly recommend

[Sally Hirst · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read The Lives and Loves of a She Devil and loved it and from there read quite a few more of hers and had a vague idea that I had read much of her output but just now looking for the date of this novel I discovered I've probably only read about a quarter of what she has written. She was prolific and also quite a bit older than I realised. I had a sense in my head of her 'voice' and that the novels I had read smacked strongly of this voice. Wise cracking commentary on the balance of power between the sexes and the way men and women can behave (usually the more negative examples of that). This one was slightly different from the others as it was a slightly to the future dystopian setting and told through the eyes of a grandmother (I remember most of the others as being relationships between peers). The voice still felt familiar, but the story entranced me rather less that others had - though it is a very long time since I read one. Some of the observations were as cleverly acerbic as ever, but you could neither root for not dislike the protagonist enough to make the book memorable.

[Lily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to say, I did not love this. In a dystopian near-future when capitalism has run its course and consumerism has all but stopped (unlikely), elderly Frances Prideaux writes her memoirs while living a particularly juicy family drama. One of her daughters was born out of wedlock and she had a child out of wedlock as well, and the parentage of everyone is thrown into disarray. Her grandsons are part of Redpeace, a violent anti-government group, while her cuckolded son-in-law is a high ranking member of NUG (National Unity Government) where he works in a division producing National Meat Loaf, rumored to be made from the DNA of cloned humans.

This book was written in 2009. Obviously, Fay Weldon couldn't have predicted the future, but I feel like this book lacked some of the punch it may have had at its publication. Dystopian Future books are just asking to be compared with the contemporary society, and are especially proud of themselves if they can reveal some deeper, uncomfortable truth. But I didn't get that dramatic, ironic comparison here. The action of this story is supposed to take place around 2012. It just felt not prescient, and not a particularly great marker of where our society was going. I suppose the whole thing was inspired by the Crash in 2008, and some aspects were kind of interesting--a rise in homelessness as the government takes over more and more private houses, just as the evicted population of people and dissidents start to disappear. Still though, it wasn't the best example of a chilling dystopian future. On top of that, I didn't love the way it was written. Some scenes were written like a play for no reason, and important plot points were given an epilogue-style laundry list of events. Ah well, you can't win em all!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Time somehow bypasses these profound personal affronts, as water will flow around and not over a stone. The current may smooth the worst of the jagged bits of hurt but not so you'd particularly notice. There's the rock, still there, harder and more obdurate than anything else. These are affronts to one's identity--and it is a matter of identity: one's very being--if you are prevented from making the connection between you now and you then, it sends you off into an alternative universe not of your choice and not of your liking."

Wow! I really enjoyed Weldon's exploration of an aged author's blurred perception of the reality around her, and the stories she has concocted in her head. Unreliable narrators can be great fun. All the more so when they have a dry sense of humor. Given a rating of 4.5 stars or Outstanding. I'll hopefully add to my review in the next few days.

[Lauren B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at my local farmers market a long time ago, drawn in by the blurb.
I had looked at other reviews, and wasn't overly hopeful.
And I can't say it was the greatest book I've read.
I absolutely understand why people couldn't finish it.
I couldn't even explain the story to you. It was strange, and repetitive, and packed with drama, cheating, lies and secrets.
But damn, I couldn't put it down.

[Minu Marie Mathew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too many characters to keep track of, most of them not relevant to the storyline. It’s supposed to be funny. I found it sassy. It’s set in a dystopian world with an older lady who has many kids, many broken relationships, and grandkids, talking about a future world. It goes back and forth. It didn’t grab my attention, and I struggled to even remember who was who.

[Esther · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm patchy. Interesting idea, written post 2008 crash imagining the state of Britain in 2013 under some quasi totalitarian government. Narrated by pretty much by Weldon herself thinly fictionalized, recounting her past marriages and children.

[Hilary Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was captivated until the end, which I found disappointing as if the author got bored with the project.
On reflection I appreciated that the ending was consistent with the self declared unreliability of the narrator and her professional occupation as a writer of fiction. I did feel it was a bit London centric.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF sorry

[Ciara · Rating 4 out of 5]

set in a dystopian near-future/alternate universe in which the current financial crisis has calcified into a new world order. set in england, which is being run by the national unity government, a quasi-dictatorship comprised of social scientists. frances, our 80-year-old narrator, lives alone in the home she bought her ex-husband out of after their divorce. she had been a well-known author & playwright in her younger days, but blew through her money while everyone else was blowing through their money, thinking the good times would never end. now she struggles to get by & has complicated relationships with her two daughters & various grandchildren.

her ex-husband's son by another woman is now an adult & forms frances's grandchildren into a revolutionary cell bent on kidnapping a high-ranking NUG official (who happens to be frances's son-in-law) & staging a bloodless coup. they make frances's house their home base, & frances makes the decision to, first, try to prevent the kidnapping by warning her daughter. but in the process, she learns a long-kept family secret & decides not to prevent the kidnapping. instead, she waits until it's done & she's alone with the captive, & then she alerts NUG.

&...yeah, that's pretty much the whole plot of the book. most of what surrounds this is frances's recollections of her youthful dalliances, her writing career, & the financial & political changes that took place, bringing the world to its current configuration. apparently frances is & was a radical feminist, & is sympathetic in some respects to the aims of her grandchildren's revolutionary goals, but she is also jaded by age & experience & has a lot of pointed things to say about youthful idealism & naivete in politics. i really enjoyed that aspect of the book a lot.

the writing dragged at times. it took me a while to get into weldon's tendency to repeat the same phrases again & again. at first, i wasn't sure if it was a narrative device, or if she'd just forgotten that she'd already used that exact same wording a time or two already. but the plot & the characters kept me going, & i'm glad, because i found the story really engaging. i finished the book in just a few hours.

[Leeny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually, I really enjoyed this book - wasn't very interested in the beginning, but by the end I thought it was very clever, above all in its discourse on human nature.

[Maureen Reil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an intriguing read and it is narrated from the viewpoint of an 80 year old woman writer named Frances. She spent and borrowed money like it was going out of fashion in the good times and carried on spending but it was too difficult to borrow in the bad times and guess what, she ended up broke and in debt so the money did go out of fashion after all. Lessons for us all there. This book is set in the very near future and it might come true any day now, when the world economy collapses and we have to go back to trading with other countries what little goods we actually produce. This country (UK) falls into a dictatorship which is responsible for feeding it's own people. So they come up with the nutritional and tasty, national meatloaf but there are rumors that it is made out of old people. We are told through various back stories about the life of Frances and her sister Fay and her extended family. And these passages, I particularly enjoyed as we got to know the lot of them and how they were all connected to one another. To live in this way, was clearly bleaker than a Dickensian novel and if this is what's in store for me, then I don't know if I want to be around to endure it. Fay weldon is truly a gifted author, who's imagination shines and stirs and makes you think. Even though she says halfway through that you can give-up reading it if you want to and you have her permission, I'm glad I didn't as it was well worth finishing.

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I am not cynical. I am just old. I know what is going to happen next," says Frances in WeldonÕs latest mix of memoir, fiction, and diary. But, in fact, it is difficult to predict what will happen next in Chalcot Crescent, as it is "essentially plotless" (Seattle Times). Readers may find themselves confused by the myriad unnecessary characters and offshoots from the main story. And while Weldon's dystopia of Red Peace (stemming from Greenpeace) and communal vegetable plots is witty and creative, Frances's recollections may seem familiar: as in many of Weldon's previous novels, the heroine's life mimics the author's. Still, Weldon's prose, clever, humorous, and satirical, remains brilliant as well as eminently quotable, and most readers should find plenty to enjoy in the adventures of the latest incarnation of Fay. This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Gerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading my first Fay Weldon and very quickly became very involved and intrigued by the plot and it's setting. It was unusual in the way it was set in a future 'now', but not so very far future 'now'.

At one point the main character, Frances - who is written as narrator - invites you to put the book down, give up and do something else and this I found I could not do.

However later the pace slows and phrases are repeated from earlier in the book. Whether this is supposed to reflect the age of the 80 year old Frances, or whether it is just a padding technique I don't know, but I believed Frances to be very lucid for an 80 year old and these things irritated me.

All in all an enjoyable book.

[Petra Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

The saying 'don't judge a book by it's cover' has never been so relevant. I really don't know why I picked up this book from a used book store in Chaing Mai, because it has plants on the cover and the title sounds like it comes from a kitchen sink novel. But my copy of the book is full of folded pages and pen marks, because there is so much wisdom and so many quotes that I didn't want to forget. It's like listening to a cynical grandmother talk about her younger years, with the volume turned up. It really made me learn to appreciate the acquired wisdom of the elderly and listen to my grandmother more!
Favorite Quote: "The stroppy three year old looms so large in the mother's consciousness, she is astounded to find it is so tiny and helpless when she picks it up from preschool."

[Don Healy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the first part of the book promises more than the rest delivers, the author's observations, when she wanders from the narrative are priceless, e.g.: " I was not particularly looking forward to the walk: I would have to keep stopping to rest along the way, and it wasn't so much the humiliation of this that bothered me, but the rage that goes with growing old, of your body holding you up as if it were at war with your mind. Once body and mind were hand in glove-no longer so. The mind commanded, the body laughed. And soon enough the body would win, and simply die."

[Lyndon · Rating 4 out of 5]

witty and wickedly clever. weldon presents a 'hobbesian' future; one complete with a Leviathan-like national government that - for the supposed good of all - controls everything from food distribution (you will never eat meatloaf the same after reading this novel) to who gets regular power supply (and therefore control the recharging of mobile phones and everything else). everything is public, nothing is private, so agree with these terms or be 'disappeared'. nothing like an alternative universe to make the real world seem like the beginning of a really bad movie.

[Phillipa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah, I dunno. There was something I quite liked about this book, but it certainly isn't for everyone. It is far from your usual sort of story. Maybe that's what I like about it? I won't lie tho, there's a bit in the middle where the author tells you she doesn't mind if you quite reading now ... and I was tempted. It wasn't an easy book to read, it was fairly disjointed. I guess like having a conversation with an old person who forgets what they were saying and drifts off down another story for a while.

[Amanda Woodward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another dystopia novel, written in a blog/memoir format by an 80 year old woman's reflections on the past and present. The year is 2013 so the collapse of civilization is eerily close and follows on the heels of things we're experiencing today. There are places where the writing and the images are especially lovely. Apparently she's written lots, alhtough I'd never read her before (at least as far as I can remember). I think I will search for more.

[Anne_MB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Original, absorbing and frighteningly realistic, this is a dystopian novel set in the very near future in England, where society has not recovered from the financial crises and has changed in alarming ways. Told in first person by an elderly woman who has lived an active and chaotic life and who is based on a life the author imagined for her own unborn sister. I couldn't put this book down. A great read.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm enjoying this book tremedously - what Weldon does with sentences is liberating, and I like the rambling interior monologue of the main protagonist, based on Weldon's sillborn sister is real life. She lives up to her reputation as a mordant wit with this one.

Update - it became a bit of a slog towards the end, but it's an enjoyable read.

[Bronwyn Hegarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good story about an older woman's life in the future. The concept of a National meatloaf (synthesized protein) made by the authorities, and a regulated society run through this story. It is an interesting socio-political statement about life and the meaning of family...not always what we think it should be.