Fay Weldon’s Lives and Loves of a She-Devil taught me how to connect with my inner anti-heroine

I’d love to tell you that my favourite book is by Flaubert or Angela Carter, maybe even Alex Garland. But the one that affected me most was written by an overlooked British icon – Fay Weldon. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil didn’t so much “change” my life as present itself to me as a sort of manifesto for living. Its protagonist, the devilish Ruth Patchett, has had more impact on my adult adventures than my own mother. She taught me that the best – the only – way to exact revenge on a cruel and unjust world is to become rich, powerful and beautiful. In any order you like – for to become one provides the necessary tools to become the others.

It is simply written. Weldon doesn’t faff about trying to draw attention to the writing process, and it’s not the sort of book you need a dictionary to get through. The poetry lies in its clarity, wit and ruthless pragmatism. She describes the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. Everyone has a weakness. Everyone has a price. Everyone can be seduced. Husbands are for borrowing and babies are for sale. Though her humour feels light, Weldon never shies away from the darker side of humanity.

Ruth is a large, ugly woman despised by her husband, who felt pressurised into marrying her to please his parents. The idea that anyone would marry due to social pressure feels weird and anachronistic in 2014, but when She-Devil was published in 1983, I suppose there must have been a good deal more of those sort of marriages. Ruth has cumbersome hands, a wart and a clumsy disposition; she has awkward children who don’t respect her, and animals that eat butter and vomit over her carpets. The neighbours pity her, but not enough to welcome her into their social circle. When Ruth’s husband begins an affair with Mary Fisher, writer of romantic novels and owner both of great legs and a decidedly phallic lighthouse, Ruth snaps. In spectacular fashion. She runs upstairs a weeping wife; she descends a she-devil.

What did I know about life as a frustrated suburban housewife when I first picked up my mother’s copy, around the age of 13? I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was opening a magic book full of dark tricks that time has taught me really do work. Ruth Patchett is Machiavelli and Madonna rolled into one; she’s Becky Sharp, but sharper; she is every scheming, practical, bitter woman. And I fell instantly in thrall to her.

In retrospect, it’s not hard to see why the novel’s themes of control, autonomy and transformation appealed to me. I was on the verge of an unwanted puberty. I wasn’t able to understand or articulate it back then, but deep down I’d been hoping I would blossom into a woman. Biology had other plans. I never thought it would be possible for me to transcend my lot in life – my penis – and become the person I felt I was supposed to be. When I read the book I just knew I loved Ruth Patchett; over a decade later, I realise I loved the possibility for radical transformation she represented.

At 13, I was old enough to have an inkling of what the rest of my life might hold in store, and young enough to be impressed by even the most obvious of observations on how the world works. I was hungry to know about power, the better to dismantle it all and bend reality to meet my needs. Ruth showed me how. By draining her heart of love and letting the vibrant energy of hate flow through her veins, she gets what she wants. Her decision to redefine the world on her own terms and refusal to be defined by others electrified me. There is nothing Ruth can’t do. When her property looks likely to fall into the sea, she has the beach restructured and the cliffs made stable because, as she points out: “Nature gets away with far too much.”

She taught me I could have anything, if I wanted it enough and was smart enough to go after it. No one had told me that before. Ruth burns her house, discards her children and leaves the pets to fend for themselves. Not the hamster, though. He’s chewed one too many pairs of socks, and she lets him burn. She’s never cruel for the sake of it, but if you have it coming, you’d better watch out.

Ruth taught me that what is good is not always what is kind, and what is kind is not always what is good. The people she manipulates along her journey are all richer for having had her in their lives. Aside from her various pseudonyms, Ruth never lies – not about the important stuff. The law can be broken and documents forged, but she always has some insight about where others are going wrong. The world is full of stupid people but she doesn’t waste time arguing with them. She’s far too concerned with getting what she wants. It seems like a message to the women of the era.

Weldon occupies a strange place in the literary hierarchy, not quite feminist enough to be considered a darling of the movement but not quite frothy enough to be dismissed as “chick lit”. I don’t see how anyone, though, could sit with this book and not be seduced by its humour. She’s written great novels before, and since – boring ones, too – but none I’ve enjoyed as much as this. It’s a shame that the TV and film adaptations fell so wide of the mark. Neither captures the book’s brilliance. Even Meryl Streep as Mary Fisher can’t save the day.

Where I come from, no one told us we could become anything when we grew up. The best you could hope for was a decent rave, or a job in a pub, or saving up enough money to buy your council house. I had no idea that it was possible to transcend the limits of the everyday life I so despised. I doubt Fay Weldon wrote her novel with people like me in mind. But that’s the thing with books, isn’t it? They mean so many different things to so many different people. Weldon knew what she was doing when she created Ruth Patchett, but I wonder how many other she-devils she has unwittingly brought into being. We all love a good anti-hero, but an anti-heroine is even better because, if we’re really honest, there’s a she-devil inside all of us.

• This article was amended on 24 March 2017 to correct the spelling of the surname of the main character Ruth Patchett.

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