The Collected Novels Volume Three

The beloved author of The Life and Loves of a She Devil sends up marriage, 1950s London, fad diets, celebrity feminists, and Doctor Faustus. The Fat Woman's Joke: A novel about sex, food, marriage, and the indignities of the 1960s. After a lifetime of gorging herself, Esther Wells has an epiphany: She and her husband are going on a diet. Dedicated foodies throughout their marriage, they are about to discover what happens when new passions supplant old. Down Among the Women: In 1950s London, Scarlet was raised by her mother-a former radical who left her husband to be fiercely independent. But at twenty, Scarlet has already had one abortion, and is about to become a single mother to the child she's naming Byzantia. Over the course of twenty years, Scarlet and her friends will discover it's never too late to become the women they are meant to be. Growing Rich: Carmen is sixteen when Bernard Bellamy spies her from the back seat of his big, black BMW. He's just made a bargain with Mephistopheles: his mortal soul in exchange for the fulfillment of his desires. As time passes, inexplicable things happen to Carmen and her friends. But she's determined to hang on to her soul, no matter what obstacles-or temptations-are erected in her path. Will she succumb? Only the devil knows . . .