SOURCE: "All Our Dog Days," in Time Literary Supplement, No. 4493, May 12-18, 1989, p. 518.

In the following review, Craig considers The Cloning of Joanna May not up to Weldon's usual high standards.

Fay Weldon's current practice is to take some exorbitant facet of modern life—political intrigue, television stardom, plastic surgery—and incorporate it into one of her colourful little analyses of the drive towards misbehaviour and the clashing interests of men and women. In The Cloning of Joanna May, her fourteenth novel, it is genetic engineering that set things going. "Fiddling around with women's eggs", as a character puts it, is one of the enormities open to enterprising operators. The story is this: Joanna May's husband Carl May, without her knowledge and with the co-operation of a Dr Holly, has imposed a novel means of reproduction on his thirty-year-old wife. An egg is removed from her womb, split...