Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780349010359

Price: £9.99

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A BESTSELLING NOVEL AND MAJOR FILM STARRING MERYL STREEP AND JACK NICHOLSON

‘I have bought more copies of this book to give to people, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, than any other . . . Heartburn is the perfect, bittersweet, sobbingly funny, all-too-true confessional novel’ NIGELLA LAWSON

‘A perfect example of Ephron’s gift for turning tragedy into comedy’ PAULA HAWKINS, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

‘She is wit without cynicism, the ultimate romantic’ GAIL COLLINS, NEW YORK TIMES


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 (screenwriter of When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle) roman à 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 fortieth 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

Reviews

This book taught me about love, loss and writing. It's a timeless classic
Independent
Full of cynicism and gags, this autobiographical novel is comic writing at its finest
Andrew Billen, The Times
Not just the funniest novel ever written about divorce, but the funniest novel ever. Only the truly talented make writing as good as this look easy
Hadley Freeman, The Week
What really interested Ephron, for all her clever writing about food, politics and overcluttered purses, were matters of the heart. She is the exact opposite of Dorothy Parker. She is wit without cynicism, the ultimate romantic
Gail Collins, New York Times
Heartburn is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking and as brittle (very) as it is steely (even more)
India Knight
I kept a copy of Nora Ephron's Heartburn next to me as a reminder of how to be funny and truthful, and all I ended up doing was ignoring my writing and rereading Heartburn
Amy Poehler
Heartburn took the most miserable personal situation and made it hysterically funny, inspiring and utterly relatable to women of all ages. I became obsessed with its author and thinly disguised heroine
Sali Hughes, Stylist
It is snortingly funny in its depiction of the death throes of a relationship. And it bursts with recipes. What more could you ask for?
Adam Kay
[Ephron] chatters up a storm, always on the verge of wisecracking up
Guardian
I have bought more copies of this book to give to people, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, than any other . . . Heartburn is the perfect, bittersweet, sobbingly funny, all-too-true confessional novel. There is not a wrong word - about food, marriage, life, love, loss
Nigella Lawson
I am not a great reader of comic novels, but Ephron's hilarious, recipe-strewn, semi-autobiographical account of a heavily pregnant woman whose husband has left her for a woman with a 'neck as long as an arm' is a treat. A perfect example of Ephron's gift for turning tragedy into comedy, Heartburn is evidence that revenge is indeed a dish best served cold
Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
The real magic of the novel comes from Ephron's nonchalant conversationalism
Helen Rosner, New Yorker
Simply one of the greatest novels involving food ever written from the writer of When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. It's about love, sex, adultery and key lime pie
Jay Rayner