The Bulgari Connection

The Bulgari Connection finds Fay Weldon on familiar ground, chronicling the pains and pleasures of the battle of the sexes, in this enjoyably funny novel. Set in glamorous contemporary London, Weldon’s story begins with the proverbial love triangle. Wealthy, dissatisfied, self-made businessman Barley Salt leaves his frumpy wife, Grace, for the glamorous TV host Doris Dubois. Grace concedes that her husband “has aged better than I have,” and that Doris “is 23 years younger than I am. She is slimmer than I am, and more clever.” Grace tries but fails to run Doris over, and for her pains is sentenced to three years in jail. However, when she meets the struggling young artist Walter Wells, with his preference for “the blown rose not the bud,” Grace literally has a new lease of life. As her life takes on new meaning, Barley and Doris start to lose control of their own self-centered lives. The Bulgari Connection is a fast-moving, highly readable novel of greed, middle-aged deceit, and love, but feels like it was written in the 1980s, not the early 21st century. This is effortless Weldon, although many of her fans will feel that it is marking time rather than breaking new ground. –Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk