I am fully prepared to admit it was this gorgeous new 40th anniversary edition of Heartburn that made me buy a book I had shamefully overlooked for years. I am a sucker for a pretty edition.
Nora Ephron is a name you can’t help but be familiar with, even if you haven’t read any of her books. An academy award nominated screen writer for films such as When Harry met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, though one of my personal favourites she wrote was Silkwood. Ephron first made her name as a journalist. Her collections of essays were bestsellers in the 1970s, and then in 1983 came Heartburn, the novel she wrote based largely on her second marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein (you know, the Watergate guy).
This is a novel however, not an autobiography, still it is clear that there are plenty of parallels with Ephron’s own life.
“Sometimes I believe that love dies but hope springs eternal. Sometimes I believe that hope dies but love springs eternal. Sometimes I believe that sex plus guilt equals love, and sometimes I believe that sex plus guilt equals good sex. Sometimes I believe that love is as natural as the tides, and sometimes I believe that love is an act of will. Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it. Sometimes I believe that love is essential, and sometimes I believe that only reason love is essential is that otherwise you spend all your time looking for it.”
Our narrator is Rachel; a cookery writer, who seven months in to her second pregnancy (she already has a young son Sam) discovers her second husband; Mark, has been having an affair. Naturally Rachel is devastated – but Ephron allows Rachel a surprisingly humorous tone, and she is very, very funny. Behind these laughs – as so often is the case with humour – is something very serious, the reality of betrayal, the ending of a marriage, being a mother, and just coping with all that stuff that goes with it. Here there is heartbreak, but it is disguised, wreathed in humour and Ephron’s observations are every bit as brittle as you might expect them to be.
When she first discovers that her husband is having an affair with Thelma Rice, a woman Rachel describes as having: “a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb”. Rachel leaves her home in Washington, for her father’s New York apartment – her father having been ‘carted off to the loony bin’ – Ephron’s words not mine!
“I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.”
In New York, Rachel intends to go back to her therapy group – which she hasn’t needed during the period since her first marriage ended, a period in which is she was happy and settled with Mark.
In New York, Rachel is involved in a jewel robbery, when her group are held up by gunpoint, and the ring Mark bought her when Sam was born is stolen. Returning to her father’s apartment, she finds Mark waiting for her, with promises to not to see Thelma again. Can she believe him? Can she forgive his betrayal and stay married, as if Thelma Rice never happened?
““Vera said: “Why do you feel you have to turn everything into a story?”
So I told her why.
Because if I tell the story, I control the version.
Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.
Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much.
Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.”
Back in Washington, Rachel keeps a suspicious eye on her husband, while juggling motherhood, food writing and keeping up with the local gossip – one recurring topic being who Thelma Rice is sleeping with. Rachel adds her own little titbit to the local grapevine – telling everyone that Thelma has an infection! Ephron hilariously depicts the life of an upper middle-class couple – both Mark and Rachel have their issues – their friends are similarly self-absorbed.
Light as a souffle, bright and breezy Heartburn is more serious than it pretends. Nora Ephron understood the pain of an affair, and there are many poignant moments as Rachel struggles with the reality of her marriage and whether she should stay in it or leave for good. Deliciously sharp, Ephron combines food, love, loss and marriage in a novel that is touchingly honest.
I’ve just skimmed your review for now as I actually have a copy of this book on the shelves – one of only a handful purchased this year. So glad to see from your closing comments that you would recommend it – phew!
I would recommend it. I hope you enjoy it too.
Lovely review, Ali. I’ve seen the film several times but have never got around to reading the book. I’m meeting a friend in a bookshop tomorrow and might just have to buy myself a copy.
I really would like to see the film too now. I had to smile at your meeting a friend at a bookshop, I do that sometimes. I rarely leave empty handed.
I’m going armed with my Waterstones loyalty card…
Lovely post Ali! I’ve seen this one about but never read Ephron and wasn’t really sure if it was one for me. But it does sound fun!
I wasn’t sure whether it would be for me either, probably why I hadn’t read it before. But I appreciated the serious reality behind her humour.
Really want to read this soon! That edition is lovely, as is your review.
Glad to hear you want to read this one. Hope you enjoy it when you get to it. These anniversary editions are certainly very pretty.
I do like the quotes you pulled. I gave up on ‘I Feel Bad About My Neck’ but maybe it was just the wrong time. I’ll give Ephron another chance!
Sometimes we need to be in the right mood for things. I’m sure you would enjoy this one.
Wasn’t that struck with this when I read it – many years ago – but you have me thinking that maybe I was too young for it then and would appreciate it much more now.
Yes I can see I may not have appreciated this in quite the right way when I was younger.
I can see why this edition caught your eye! I’ve never read it nor have I seen the movie version. I do love her movies, though – especially When Harry Met Sally, one of my all-time faves. Lovely review.
Thank you, this edition is indeed very eye catching.
Nora Ephron is so good! That said, I haven’t read Heartburn in years, though I understand it was VERY autobiographical. I prefer her early work, especially the essays in Crazy Salad , before she went in for humor pieces and film. I will never forget her essay on being flat-chested, which gave hope to many of us! Was she the only writer ever to consider this factor????!!!!
Ha ha, that does sound fun. I should probably try to get hold of a copy of one of her books of essays.
Crazy Salad was wonderful! I wish I still had my little paperback.
I shall have to look out for that collection.
This sounds great Ali, and your quotes show how genuine humour in writing can at the same time as raising a chuckle, clutch at the heart
Oh yes, in this book Ephron is masterly at doing just that.
I loved this book too and have read it many times though I’ve never seen the movie. I just can’t picture Meryl Streep as Rachel and Jack Nicholson as her husband, probably because I know what Nora and Carl look like in real life. And of course I love all the food and recipes mixed into the story.
I see your point. I hadn’t realised Meryl Streep played Rachel. I suppose if the film was a biopic then the casting be more of a problem. I suppose they decided the actors didn’t have to look like Nora and Carl because they were supposed to be fictional characters.
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This sounds unmissable – and what a devilishly attractive edition – how is one expected to resist? 😉
😀Exactly, that’s what I thought. Impossible to resist.
Which is exactly why it’s brilliant that Virago is still transforming their delightful green-spined volumes, so that they can recatch and re-recatch our attentions!
Oh yes absolutely. So glad this caught my eye.