Leader of the Band

Fay Weldon mines the fields of sexuality, procreation, and astronomy in her liberating novel about the ongoing quest for self-fulfillment.

Sandra Harris—wife, astronomer (known for discovering the planet Athena), television phenomenon, and "professional searcher after truth"—has had an epiphany. She leaves her boring attorney husband and runs off with Mad Jack Stubbs, her trumpet-playing lover, and his groupie entourage, for a tour of Southern France. Pursued by her husband, Mad Jack's wife, and the paparazzi, Sandra lives entirely for the moment—and great sex.

In between, she ponders her past (institutionalized mother, Nazi war criminal father) while trying to ignore the deafening tick of her biological clock.

Fay Weldon's novel is a mirror held up to the face of its reader; an illuminating, reflective tale about sex, ambition, and the love that makes fools of us all.