An astonishing novel that probes into the strange world of genetic engineering.
Joanna May thought herself unique, indivisible – until one day, to her hideous shock, she discovered herself to be five: though childless she was a mother; though an only child she was surrounded by sisters young enough to be her daughers – Jane, Julie, Gina and Alice, the clones of Joanna May.
How will they withstand the shock of first meeting? And what of the avenging Carl, Joanna’s former husband and the clones’ creator: will he take revenge for his wife’s infidelity and destroy her sisters one by one?
In this astonishing novel, Fay Weldon weaves a web of paradox quite awesome in its cunning. Probing into the strange world of genetic engineering, The Cloning of Joanna May raises frightening questions about our identity as individuals – and provides some startling answers. Funny, serious, revolutionary, this is the work of a master storyteller at the height of her powers.
Fay Weldon (1931 – 2023) overcame hard times and odd jobs as a lone parent, before becoming one of the top advertising copywriters of her generation. She moved into TV drama (writing the pilot episode of the iconic series Upstairs, Downstairs in 1971) then turned to novels – including the Booker-shortlisted Praxis (1978) and the feminist classic The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983). Fay was a Professor of Writing at Bath Spa University and was made a CBE for services to literature.