American reviews were mixed, saying things like sure, dramatic movement, but also they read like a fever chart, and (from Louis Simpson
) mere self-dramatization. Sexton replied to Simpson: The poems are children of...
Literary responses
Fay Weldon
When FW
showed this novel to Louis Simpson
, a US poet and academic whom she hoped to impress, he replied, angrily (in her account) that it was not a proper novel,
Weldon, Fay. Mantrapped. Fourth Estate, 2004.
82
since it...
Literary responses
Fay Weldon
FW
tried this too, before publication, on Louis Simpson
. He suggested it was a rip-off of Mary McCarthy
's The Group, and said that introducing eight characters on the first page was too...
Textual Features
Fay Weldon
The story is told from a combination of third- and first-person narration, interspersed with terse play-script dialogue. FW
said later that she had taken Louis Simpson
's advice about how novels should be written.
