Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of Chalcot Crescent by Fay Weldon

Chalcot Crescent by Fay Weldon

Chalcot Crescent

by Fay Weldon

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Sep 2010, 240 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

Paperback Original. Its 2013 and 80-year-old Frances is sitting on the stairs of number three Chalcot Crescent, Primrose Hill, listening to the debt collectors pounding on her front door. World history has finally reached her doorstep!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"A rollicking story that may inspire readers to greener habits before the apocalypse." - Library Journal

"The sunny romanticism that made The Hearts and Lives of Men her most charming novel (and one set in a very similar milieu in Primrose Hill) is gone, and some readers will regret that. Nevertheless, it's a persuasive fable: sinister, clever, funny and vintage Weldon. Why hasn't she been made a Dame?" - The Independent (UK)

"One thing is sure about Chalcot Crescent: Fay Weldon's many followers may find it too alarming to love, but they are going to greatly admire it." - The Guardian (UK)

"Weldon has always been alert to the circular nature of key arguments. In Chalcot Crescent it is less a case of the personal being political than the other way around." - The Telegraph (UK)

"The helplessness of old age and the timelessness of the pain Frances has picked up on the way are poignant. Moving in and out of time zones is a good way to evoke this, but it comes at the expense of momentum." - The Spectator (UK)

This information about Chalcot Crescent was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Fay Weldon Author Biography

Photo: Ian Jones

English novelist and writer Weldon Fay, was born on 22nd September 1939 in Birmingham, UK. Her work tends to have strong feminist themes. Her grandfather, Edgar Jepson and her mother, Margaret were both writers. She studied at university in Scotland and returned to England after giving birth to a son. After afterwards she married Ronald Bateman who she left after two years of marriage. In order to support her son Weldon started working in advertising industry.

She later married Ron Weldon, and during her second pregnancy she began to write for radio and television. In 1967 she published her first novel, The Fat Woman's Joke, after that the next 30 years turned out to be very successful for her. She published over 20 novels, collections of short stories, films for television, ...

... Full Biography
Link to Fay Weldon's Website

Other books by Fay Weldon at BookBrowse
  • Habits of the House jacket

6 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

He who opens a door, closes a prison

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.