Nora Ephron

Heartburn

No depth or complex plot but somehow still worked and I wanted more! Great comedic writing.

Francesca Palmer-Clarke

Deepika Ramesh

I wouldn't have discovered Nora Ephron's Heartburn if the awesome folks at The Bookshop, Jor Bagh Market, hadn't recommended it. At this point, after reading a bunch of books recommended by them, I knew that I might end up liking Heartburn as well, although the book's rating on Goodreads doesn't reflect my sentiment. 

I quite liked Rachel Samstat. She was 38, a food writer, 7 months pregnant with her second child, and her second marriage was crumbling. She had moved into her father's apartment to get a respite from her husband's adultery, and the book started...

I was in New York, staying in my father's apartment, I was crying most of the time, and every time I stopped crying I had to look at my father's incredibly depressing walnut furniture and slate-gray lamps, which made me start crying again.

The book was published in 1983, and the story unfolded in the 70's. Rachel had no social media then to casually follow her husband's digital footprints, and to unwillingly learn that she was being betrayed. It had to happen the old-school way. She had to rummage in the socks drawer, run through the telephone bills, and look for inscriptions on the books gifted to her husband by his friends. Even after discovering that she was being cheated, Rachel related her story with the distance that a raconteur takes while narrating a funny anecdote, and her story still felt intimate. 

Everybody in her life was funny. Perhaps, it's just the way Rachel saw them, choosing to see what she thought was the chief aspect of their personalities. Her mother had a near death experience, and ran away with a man who believed he was God. Her father married her best friend's sister. Her first husband froze his dead hamster, stored him in their own freezer, and offered a tiny bouquet to his deceased hamster-friend every day. One of her friends proposed her, jumped into a seal pond, and the seals followed him into the pond in horror to reclaim their habitat. They all made hilarious cameos in her story. In between, she dropped recipes to make some of her favourite delicacies. They appeared at random junctures, but she was that person whose life was built on the love for cooking, and who could express her love articulately through food, and even if she were moaning about her breakup, she was kind enough to get distracted, and shared recipes. She even shared one of her delightful essays titled Potatoes and Love: Some Reflections, and the next time when I eat mashed potatoes, I will think of Rachel. 

Once in a while, Rachel addressed the reader, and assured that the story had a plot, but it was weak. It still worked for me though. If a book started with the central character being pregnant, one could predict how it would end. Although her narration seemed like she was rambling, it seemed warm, funny, and soulful. I caught myself laughing out loud quite a few times, and that's saying something. I usually don't laugh when I read funny books. The laughter usually rings in the head, and it dies there. Rachel made it audible. 

When Rachel made the final decision, she sounded very unlike Rachel. Her ability to see the funny side of things disappeared. She seemed world-wearied, broken, exhausted, and maybe, she should have felt all of that a long while ago, and if she had, the book would have ended up sounding like another jilted person's side of the story. It still was, in some way, perhaps. In her story, the husband was totally at fault, and while she questioned her contribution to the collapse, she was relieved by the betrayal. 

That's the catch about betrayal, of course: that it feels good, that there's something immensely pleasurable about moving from a complicated relationship which involves minor atrocities on both sides to a nice, neat, simple one where one person has done something so horrible and unforgivable that the other person is immediately absolved of all the low-grade sins of sloth, envy, gluttony, avarice and I forget the other three.

At the end, Rachel justified her proclivity to turn everything into a story and a joke. I bought her view, and that also made her totally unreliable. What was she telling me in the first place? But it didn't matter anymore. 

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.

I must admit that Rachel's sense of humour was not clean. It was replete with stereotypes about gender, and race, and some of her jokes reminded me of what the standup comedians dish out as jokes these days. I found myself stopping, and wondering if people laughed about such mean things forty years ago, and I squirmed in the thought that people still do. I wished some personal growth for Rachel. 

Perhaps, if Ephron were alive, she might have written a sequel, and I would have still bought that book. I might not necessarily care about Rachel, but I am curious about her life. I liked the way she made me laugh when her jokes were politically correct, and when it stemmed from bewilderment, surprise, revenge, and resignation. I liked her more for she hadn't lost hope. Also, there must be a TV show on this book. 

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 the only reason love is essential is that otherwise you spend all your time looking for it.

iamazoo

i know this is not some high brow literary tome but i really loved it. it checks all the boxes for me: food writing, humor, new york, scathing jabs at the washington elite. it’s hilarious and sad and angry, but above all it feels sincere. i also found all the characters to be annoying snobs so it never felt like i was forced to feel bad for any of them, not even the narrator herself. there is a sense of self awareness in the narrator’s story-telling that relieves you of any obligation to judge their bad behavior or pick sides - a tricky but important feeling to convey, not unlike the futility of adjudicating right or wrong in a marriage.

personally - and embarrassingly - i also love that it’s basically autobiographical: the petty drama about these niche, boring, “famous-but-not-famous-famous” people - in other words, the only kind of celebrity gossip that a nerd like me cares about - is just such delectable fodder for my weird schadenfreude. thelma is inviting the kissingers to her party? i already hate her even if she weren’t a home wrecker! (just kidding. (not really kidding.))

Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel discovers that her husband is in love with another woman. The fact that this woman has a 'neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb' is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel is a cookery writer, and between trying to win Mark back and wishing him dead, she offers us some of her favourite recipes. HEARTBURN is a roller coaster of love, betrayal, loss and - most satisfyingly - revenge. This is Nora Ephron's roman a clef: 'I always thought during the pain of the marriage that one day it would make a funny book,' she once said - And it is! Books included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

Hilarious and painfully honest, loved this book.

Molly Bridge

Peggy Walker

I just reread this book after hearing about Nora Ephron's death. This is one of the few times that I really enjoyed both the book AND the movie made from it, although there are definite differences. This book is from another time, but one I lived through, so the references to things like the Eastern Airlines Shuttle were meaningful to me. This book is so human....it's based in part on her marriage to Carl Bernstein (of Watergate fame), and he does not come off well. I was rooting for Rachel all the way, and this will always be one of the books I would take to my desert island.

really enjoyed this book, speaks to my favourite things - food, recipes, relationships. always writes witty, wry, dry, not over flourished which i always enjoy

Orla Kilroy

Nora Ephron, you will ALWAYS be famous in the romance community. If anyone could take the story of a break up and make it beautiful, it would be her. 

Kaitlyn R

a re-read. good as the first one, didn't remember the whining tone though. the movie is a must-watch.

Rocio Rivas

It was good! I hate how “poor” three stars look and the fact that Goodreads doesn’t have half stars, but don’t be deceived, it was good. I recommend it. Read it as if it were a movie, for maximum Ephron effect. Now I’m off to watch the movie myself.

my_bookalicious

I was listening audio version of this book told by Meryl Streep, so i can’t tell if I would love the reading as much as listening to it.

Olivera Mitić

Nije da ovome nešto konkretno fali (štaviše, inače posebno volim nepretenciozne, pomalo bizarne i koncizne romane koji tumaraju kroz određeni period nečijeg života), ali se valjda nisam u prevelikoj meri povezala...ni sa čim.

PS: Shoutout za Srbina iz Jugoslavije koji se pojavljuje na dve-tri strane tamo pred kraj.

Simon Harrison

Short and witty but showing its age and felt self indulgent and too smart

Chelsea White

A good, quick read. I definitely read it with the knowledge that Nora Ephron is responsible for some of my favorites movies in mind, which made me push through at some points. Once I got into the book I couldn't put it down and finished in less than three days!

Heartburn

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