Helen Zahavi - Dirty Weekend

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Helen Zahavi - Dirty Weekend (Flamingo, 1992)

Cover photography: Robin Cracknell

Blurb:

This is the story of Bella, who woke up one morning and realised she'd had enough ...

Bella is a small, waif-like woman, constantly picked upon by aggressive men, an extreme case in point being her neighbour Tim who subjects her to obscene telephone calls and threatens rape and an acid bath. A session with Nimrod the clairvoyant convinces her that life will not allow her to be one of life's bystanders, for her it is a straight choice between being the slaughterer or the slaughtered. It doesn't take her long to decide which she's going to be from now on, which is bad news for her stalker and Brighton's male population in general. Once "Timbo" has been disposed of, she makes up her mind to quit the coast and head for London after the weekend, so she packs plenty of action into her final two days in her home town.

"The urgency with which she stabbed him was impressive. She really got stuck in."

Bella is as engaging a psycho as you're likely to meet. Never once do you sympathise with her victims, quite simply because they're a motley collection of violent misogynists, rapists and tramp-baiting yuppie bullies (in my favourite sequence, Bella surprises three of same down an alley as they're about to burn a bag lady as a "witch"). It's slick (185 pages), pacey as a Laymon novel, intermittently hilarious, extremely violent and the plot is pure pulp (what are the chances of Bella encountering the local Jack the Ripper under Brighton Pier within 48 hours of embarking on her murder spree?).

What else is there to say but RECOMMENDED!

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Victoria

I enjoyed the book and the film of "Dirty Weekend"- I think he managed the v.v. dark humour of the book really well (thought the bit where she's got the bloke strapped to the chair was brilliant). I admit I saw the film first and had to persevere with the book a bit, but it was worth the trouble.

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Pulphack

Been a long time since I read this, but I second that emotion... The thing that always got me riled about this was not the book, nor Zahavi herself, but all the Guardian reading feminists who thought it was wonderful. Like my ex-wife and my best mate (a woman, in case you were wondering) who thought it was great, yet sneered at the likes of Death Wish and Ms45. Ok, so they had a bit of a point as the latter really was stretching it, but my point was that lots of male-protagonist fiction of this sort got a slagging from them and their mates (and lots of others like them) without them ever having read or seen any of it. I had, and Zahavi does the same thing but just with a woman holding the gun. They railed about the violence, then got their jollies on passages that could easily have been Brian Garfield.

Then, of course, Michael Winner filmed it. They were horrified. I laughed myself sick.

So what happened to Helen Zahavi? I remember one other book that was as good, but overshadowed. Anyone know?

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Franklin Marsh

But the putty faced one was disturbingly faithful to the novel, wasn't he? Well, apart from a dreadfully miscast Ian Richardson. Used to have a film edition of this. Re Pulphack's comments above, add Bret Easton Ellis and American Psycho to the list - and the film of that was directed by a lady!