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Title details for The Shrapnel Academy by Fay Weldon - Available

The Shrapnel Academy

by Fay Weldon
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available
On the anniversary of the Eve of the Battle of Waterloo, an assortment of unusual dinner guests gather at a remote country house to pay homage to Henry Shrapnel, inventor of the exploding cannonball. But all is not peaceful at the Shrapnel Academy: The downstairs servants, a group of third-world refugees led by a South African butler, are plotting to overthrow their upstairs oppressors. When a blizzard hits the countryside and traps everyone indoors, the rebellion erupts into bloody warfare throughout the Academy...
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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 1, 2014

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781781858035

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781781858035
      • File size: 3040 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 31, 1987
      Versatile Weldon, British author (The Life and Loves of a She-Devil and playwright, is in her element with this fiendish satire, inviting comparison with Swift's acid condemnation of homosupposedlysapiens in Gulliver's Travels. The Shrapnel Academy memorializes Henry Shrapnel, inventor of the exploding cannon ball. In his honor, chatelaine Joan Lumb plays hostess to a group headed by Gen. Makeshift, who will lecture on the Battle of Wellington, and other military experts. Present also are the general's sexy secretary-mistress, Bella Morthampton, lusted after by husbands and lovers of other female guests. Known as Medusa (Mew), a reporter for the Woman's Times attends because Lumb thinks Mew is from the London Times. While the guests apostrophize epic battleswhich Weldon describes slashingly from the Age of Muscle B.C. through recent inventions of push-button carnagemutiny is brewing below stairs. Acorn the butler presides over hundreds of illegal aliens, hidden by the servants, an army Acorn plans to turn loose on the white oppressors. The story's end is unpredictable; the author's aim is unmistakably a gravamen charge of stupidity.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 1, 1988
      Guests apostrophize epic battles, and mutiny is brewing in the servants' quarters at a party given at the Shrapnel Academy, which memorializes Henry Shrapnel, inventor of the exploding cannon ball. The "versatile'' Weldon ``is in her element with this fiendish satire, inviting comparison with Swift's acid condemnation of Homosupposedlysapiens in Gulliver's Travels,'' PW stated.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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