Darcy's Utopia

Eleanor Darcy has come up in the world. With her second husband in prison for financial crimes against the nation, she is a media sensation. A self-professed ''feminist of the socialist variety,'' Eleanor grants an exclusive interview to Hugh Vansitart and Valerie Jones, a pair of ambitious journalists. Her vision of the future includes the abolition of money and society-approved procreation, a world in which ''all men will believe in God and be capable of love.'' During the course of their interviews, Hugh and Valerie succumb to some erotic impulses of their own, while Eleanor goes on to become patron saint of the Darcian Movement.

Now in her ninth decade, Fay Weldon is one of the foremost chroniclers of our time, a novelist who spoke to an entire generation of women by daring to say the things that no one else would. Her work ranges over novels, short stories, children''s books, nonfiction, journalism, television, radio, and the stage. She was awarded a CBE in 2001.