Fay Weldon's novels have so far moved pretty confidently up the social scale. From the girls-together scruffiness of "The Fat Woman's Joke" and "Down Among the Women," she has progressed via the TV-executive and career-person stratum of "Female Friends" to the stockbrokers suburbia of "Remember Me." In ["Words of Advice"] Miss Weldon finally strikes it rich, and is ushered into the presence of her first millionaire.

Her first millionairess, too, naturally. Miss Weldon's world has always been assertively, almost parodistically, matriarchal; she writes as if men had the hormones; when things happen, you may be sure that women make them do so. (p. 13)

Gemma is the chief puppeteer. She is also the chief monologist in this generally rather garrulous novel, punctuating the maneuvers with a detailed account of her formative years. (You feel, during these speeches, that Weldon is writing flat out for Gemma: they certainly share a...