That old alliance, that old conspiracy of women against men, is … as likely to shatter at a touch of sexual rivalry as it was in the dangerous days before sisterhood was officially established. In that area, nothing has changed.

No one knows this better than Fay Weldon whose archetypal heroine is innocent, helpful, a child bride, sexually active, eager to please, easily hurt, puzzled and valiant, burdened with an unsatisfactory mother and an absent father, and above all endowed with friends whom she has known all her life and who have been doing her down for as long as she can remember…. Fay Weldon's heroine is not liberated; her friends are. And although Mrs. Weldon is on the side of the heroine, she is really one of the friends. She knows everything: the awful truths about other women, and about men too, although the latter are curiously insubstantial...