SOURCE: "More Lecherous than Loamshire," in The Spectator, Vol. 277, No. 8780, November 2, 1996, pp. 45-46.

In the following review, Gardam discusses Weldon's humorous examination of sin and evil in Worst Fears.

As usual, Fay Weldon has written a very moral book [Worst Fears]; that is to say a book that takes a good look at sin and then satirises the moraliser along with everybody else. 'Look,' she says, 'how excited we get about our immorality, how we enjoy judging and deploring each other's vices. How deluded we are if we don't analyse what passes for fidelity and success and love and friendship and loyalty.' 'Is it not better,' she asks, 'to be on the watch against the illusions of these things rather than to swan along smiling and imagining that we are happy?'

It's a stringent, almost puritan, almost Old Testament code. 'When the moment of...