Women against men (Jameson)

I picked Women against men up in Oxfam, intrigued by the title. I hadn't read any Storm Jameson before so that was another good reason.

The book turned out to be three novellas.

The first one, Delicate Monster, was my favourite. It told the story of two women who had been friends since childhood who were both writers; the narrator had had little success with her work and forced to work first at a university and then as a publisher's reader, her friend was a bestselling author. It seemed that they only maintained their friendship for the purpose of despising each other, which wasn't a terribly nice premise, but it was interesting witnessing the women growing up, and from what I read in the introduction, it sounded like it had been quite influenced by Jameson's life as an academic. Their relationship suddenly broke down when the narrator's friend has an affair with her husband.

The second is called A single heart about a woman cheating on her husband as a result of boredom with her marriage.

In the third, A day off, we witness a woman who has lived off men all her life, suddenly wondering what she will do now that she is facing middle age and is alone.

Overall my feeling of Women against men was that it was not a feminist book as I thought the title implied - rahter it seemed that Jameson didn't really like women very much. I'll be interested to see if this conclusion is bourne out by Jameson's other novels, in particular Company Parade which I've heard quite a bit about.

It's just been published the once by Virago.