case, she follows a descending path from triumph to misery. When we first meet her, she is beautiful, rich, successful, and sought after. Bobbo, Ruth's Bobbo, loves her uncontrollably. When we leave her, she has died a lonely, pitiable, and horrible death. She dies with no friends, no money, and no Bobbo. It is love that does her in, bringing with it the death of her power.
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Mary Fisher's success in life is attributed to her ability to "invent" perfect love in her novels. Thus, Weldon begins her book: "Mary Fisher lives in a High Tower, on the edge of the sea: she writes a great deal about the nature of love. She tells lies" (p. 1).
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These "lies" are Mary's tools for her own reinvention. She begins as a cardboard cutout, a personification of her own two-dimensional heroines, a woman incapable of real love. Therein lies her success. She believes these lies, and has the ability to make them come true in her own life. Bobbo loves her power, as he hates Ruth's dependence; loves her beauty, as he hates Ruth's ugliness; and loves her world of champagne and smoked salmon and elegant parties, as he hates the suburban drudgery that Ruth represents. Prior to meeting Bobbo, she slept with whoever she wanted, and never formed a strong attachment. "Almost, she became her own creation" (p. 109).
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Mary's downfall comes when she truly falls in love with Bobbo. She is then as powerless and miserable as Ruth was at the beginning. Why didn't she throw Bobbo and his children out? Or her mother? Because Mary loves, she is engaged in life and society, and subject to its rules. In Weldon's novel, Mary's absolute devotion to Bobbo is explained as follows: "The more she has of Bobbo's body, the more she wants it. She desires his good opinion: she will do anything to have it, even look after his children, her mother, grow old before her time. His good opinion means a good night in bed. Sexual thralldom is as tragic a condition in life as it is in literature. Mary Fisher knows it, but what can she do?" (p. 98). To regain her old life, Mary must leave Bobbo, but she cannot.
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 | | "Mary Fisher must renounce love, but cannot. And since she cannot, Mary Fisher must be like everyone else. She must take her destined place between past and future, limping between the old generation and the new: she cannot escape. She nearly did: almost, she became her own creation." [P. 109]
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Mary Fisher does struggle. Even in the face of the real truth of love, she attempts to keep up appearances:
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| | "Mary Fisher tosses and yearns and waits to be filled, and writes about love. Her lies are worse because now she knows they are lies...." [P. 183]
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Mary sells her houses to pay for Bobbo's legal fees. Her books don't sell so well now that she "knows they are lies" (p. 183) and eventually she
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