SOURCE: "Wise Wickedness," in Belles Lettres, Vol. 7, No. 4, Summer 1992, p. 18.

In the following review, Barreca asserts that both Life Force and Moon over Minneapolis will add significantly to Weldon's canon of feminist literature.

When Fay Weldon was finishing the manuscript of Life Force, she felt, paradoxically, at a loss for words.

"When the critics ask what the new book is about, what can I say?" she wondered. "I can't very well tell them it's about a man with a ten-inch dong, can I?" I suggested that she remind them that they always complained that she never fleshed out her male characters, and that here she does so with a vengeance.

The book does indeed deal with Leslie Beck "The Magnificent," as he is usually known, who is a catalyst in much the same way that Ruth from Lives and Loves of a She-Devil was. "Things happen because of...