Review: Heartburn by Nora Ephron

Title: Heartburn
Author: Nora Ephron
First Publication Date: January 1, 1983
Genre: Contemporary, Adult Fiction
Rating: ☕☕☕☕☕︎ (4.5/5)
Content Warnings: *highlight to view* {cheating, adultery, divorce}

BLURB

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. (via Goodreads)

THOUGHTS

For a long time, I didn’t believe him. And then I believed him. I believed in change. I believed in metamorphosis. I believed in redemption. I believed in Mark. My marriage to him was as wilful an act as I have ever committed; I married him against all the evidence. I married him believing that marriage didn’t work, that love dies, that passion fades, and in so doing I became the kind of romantic only a cynic is truly capable of being.

A short but sweet offering from the patron saint of romantic comedies, Nora Ephron’s Heartburn follows Rachel Samstat, a food writer who, while in her seventh month of her second pregnancy, discovered that her husband is in love with another woman. This novel chronicled the end of a marriage and is too close for comfort to Nora Ephron’s life that his ex-husband almost sued him for it and ultimately resulted in a court-assisted agreement on how things were presented in the 1986 movie adaptation of the same name. I read the 20th anniversary edition where Ephron had a foreword written on it and admitted a lot of it. Though it is a bit awkward to say that a breakdown of one’s marriage can be fuel for a novel with a lot of comedic overtones, coupled with Ephron’s signature sharp wit and biting dialogue, it just works. 40 years into it’s publication and I feel like it still holds up. Reading the dialogues and general story structure of this book reminds me so much of classic romantic comedy movies, which makes perfect sense as writing the screenplay for the movie adaptation of this kickstarted Nora Ephron’s screenwriting career which influenced and defined so much of the genre during it’s early 90’s boom. Ephron remarked “one of the best things I’m proudest of is that I managed to convert an event that seemed to me hideously tragic at the time to a comedy” and I think this is one the hallmarks of this novel – to constantly and distinctly feel that funny vein running through it despite the dreadful circumstances that it came with. One moment you feel bad and share Rachel’s pain. The next, you are laughing because of how ridiculous things turned out.

I still love you, I thought. […] But someday I won’t anymore.

I am probably rating Heartburn more than it objectively actually deserves but reading this novel gave me a much needed realization at the perfect time that I can and was able to actually act up on it. Ultimately, the intensity of how much I liked this book is closely attached to where I was in life at the moment I read this. Not on the verge of divorce, but being heartbroken and thinking really hard (harder and more frequent than is necessary) of whether the pain I’ve experienced so far is enough for me to actually let go or is it still bearable to hold on a little longer. Like Rachel (I mean I’m not even sure if this a spoiler since this is clearly a roman-à-clef), I let go. I also feel like there’s always really something beautiful about writing based on your own experiences, putting your thoughts and feelings into paper, and making sense of it in the process. So yeah, take that into account when you consider this book recommendation. Overall, I really liked it and I recommend it with all my heart. ❤︎₊ ⊹

RATING

QUOTABLE QUOTES

‘I think it takes two people to hurt you,’ I said. ‘The one who does it and the one who tells you.’

Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much.

I could remember the feeling, but I couldn’t really remember the words. Which was not the worst way to begin to forget.

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About the Author

Nora Ephron was the author of the hugely successful I Feel Bad About My Neck, I Remember Nothing, and Heartburn among many others. She received Academy Award nominations for best original screenplay for When Harry Met Sally . . . , Silkwood, and Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed. Her other credits include the hit play Lucky Guy and the films You’ve Got Mail and Julie & Julia, both of which she wrote and directed. She died in 2012.

Author Website

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