Heartburn (Unabridged)
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3.7 • 50 Ratings
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.
Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs" is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. Heartburn is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If there were an Oscar for Best Audiobook Reading, we’d totally give it to Meryl Streep. The star of Mike Nichols’ classic 1986 film adaptation is the perfect choice to narrate Heartburn, Nora Ephron’s thinly veiled depiction of the end of her marriage to Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein. Both funnier and crueler than the movie, Ephron’s novel isn’t about the breakup itself, but about how Rachel Samstat—a pregnant cookbook author who discovers her husband’s infidelity—processes grief and rage with biting, sarcastic humor. Streep nails Ephron’s tone, careening from self-pitying pain to clear-eyed acceptance. Also, there are recipes, and they’re delicious.
Customer Reviews
Welcome humour
There are occasional longeurs in Heartburn: not another riff about the despair of betrayal, one sighs. But, overall, this is a fresh, engaging monologue by a comedic novelist who chooses not to take her own situation too seriously. Nora Ephron is a Jewish woman well aware of the comparative absurdity of personal anguish in a world where peoples can tear themselves apart. Rachel Samstat, her proud, astute, resilient heroine, casts a caustic eye on not only herself but on her philandering husband and deceptive friends, while probing the nature of hypocrisy, and the impulse to histrionics. Beautifully read by Meryl Streep, this is a book I can recommend.