I picked up this 1983 comic novel because I’m a fan of Nora Ephron, whose screenwriting credits include When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. I love her blog posts on Huffington Post.

As the story opens, cookbook author Rachel Samstat is seven months pregnant when she discovers her husband is having an affair. That suggests all manner of comic high-jinks, but instead Ephron takes a meandering route, more interior monologue than actual story. The film version must have been hugely reworked for the screen – virtually nothing goes on in the book. At one point the central character addresses readers and concedes that “there’s not much plot here.”

(The book is supposedly based on her real-life marriage to, and divorce from, Carl Bernstein – perhaps she needed to work something out.)

Though I put Heartburn down a few times while reading it, I always wanted to come back. Its voice is so charming and authentic, even as Rachel digresses into recipes for key lime pie. At the end she turns deeply serious when discussing why she needs to leave her husband, despite her desperate straits. A good book.