The Heart of the Country

Suburban complacency and marital infidelity get their comeuppance in this black comedy by Fay Weldon.

When Natalie's husband, Harry, kisses her and their two children goodbye, departs for the office, and never returns, Natalie immediately blames herself. If she hadn't been cheating on her husband every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, he never would have left her for his secretary, a local beauty queen.

Left penniless, without a husband, and eventually without a home, Natalie finds herself navigating the heartless, winding pathways of the state welfare system. There, she meets Sonia, who offers to shelter Natalie and her children. But Sonia has her own agenda, and her monstrous scheme culminates at the town's annual carnival, where she will take revenge on both men and women alike.

Narrated from a mental institution by the seething Sonia, The Heart of the Country is a lusty, high-spirited, ultimately cautionary tale about the wages of sin and the pleasures of adultery, which always demand a price.