What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel [Paperback]

Zoë Heller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2003

 

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

 

Now the Major Motion Picture Notes on a Scandal

 

Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a solitary life until Sheba Hart, the new art teacher at St. George's, befriends her. But even as their relationship develops, so too does another: Sheba has begun an illicit affair with an underage male student. When the scandal turns into a media circus, Barbara decides to write an account in her friend's defense--and ends up revealing not only Sheba's secrets, but also her own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Subtitled Notes on a Scandal, Heller's engrossing second novel (after Everything You Know) is actually the story of two inappropriate obsessions-one a consummated affair between a high school teacher and her student, the other a secret passion harbored by a dowdy spinster. Sheba Hart, a new 40ish art teacher at a London school for working-class kids, has been arrested for having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student, Steven Connolly. The papers are having a blast. Sheba is herself the object of fascination for her older colleague and defender, Barbara Covett, whose interest in Sheba is not overtly romantic but has an erotic-and at times malevolent-intensity. Barbara narrates the story of Sheba's affair while inadvertently revealing her own obsession and her pivotal role in the scandal. The novel is gripping from start to finish; Heller brings vivid, nuanced characterizations to the racy story. Sheba is upper-class, arty, carelessly beautiful in floaty layers of clothing, with a full life of her own: doting older husband, impossible adolescent daughter, a son with Down's Syndrome, real if underdeveloped talent as a potter. She never got a driver's license, she tells Barbara, because she is always given rides; people want to do things for her. Barbara's respectable maiden-lady exterior hides a bitter soul that feasts on others' real and imagined shortcomings: one colleague's carelessly shaved armpits, another's risible baseball jacket. Even characters on stage for a minute (a Camden barman who hams it up for Barbara) live and breathe.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The New Yorker

Barbara Covett, a sixtyish history teacher, is the kind of unmarried-woman-with-cat whose female friends sooner or later decide she is "too intense." Thus when a beautiful new pottery teacher, Sheba Hart—a "wispy novice with a tinkly accent and see-through skirts"—chooses Barbara as a confidante, she is deeply, even rather sinisterly, gratified. Sheba's secret is explosive: married with two kids, she is having an affair with a fifteen-year-old student. The novel, Heller's second, is Barbara's supposedly objective "history" of the affair and its eventual discovery, written furtively while she and her friend are holed up in a borrowed house, waiting for Sheba's court date. Barbara has appointed herself Sheba's "unofficial guardian," protecting her from the salivating tabloids. Equally adroit at satire and at psychological suspense, Heller charts the course of a predatory friendship and demonstrates the lengths to which some people go for human company.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 258 pages
• Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (June 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312421990
• ISBN-13: 978-0312421991
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books this year September 2, 2003

By sb-lynn TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Brief summary and review, no spoilers.

Barbara Covett is a 60ish spinster school teacher, opinionated, intelligent and very lonely. She becomes good friends with Sheba Hart, a beautiful, popular 42 year old new teacher who has just arrived at Barbara's school. The novel is told from the point-of-view of Barbara, as she befriends Sheba and discovers that Sheba may be having an affair with one of Sheba's young students.

When I heard about the plot of this book, I have to admit I wasn't all that interested in reading it. But I picked up the book and read the first page and found it utterly compelling and an engrossing and intelligent read.

Part of the brilliance of this novel is the way you learn about both characters by listening to the narrator, the aptly named Barbara Covett. All is not what it seems and the author does a wonderful job making these characters very real people. Heller does a wonderful job showing how single women relate to those married with children and how people deal with loneliness and routine. She also shows how we make rationalizations about ourselves and our actions in order to justify our beliefs that we are good, honorable people.

I highly recommend this novel for any book clubs. It would make for a great discussion,and I think that everyone is going to have a different opinion about each of these two women. Not only is this novel an intelligent read, but it's a fun one also. This book is a page-turner that leaves you thinking about it and wanting to talk about it with your friends..what more can you ask for?

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Notes on a Scandal May 4, 2005

By Jacquelyn

Format:Paperback

This was one of the best books I've ever read -- and I read a lot. It was astonishingly good. It's about 2 teachers at a Brtish public high school who develop a close friendship. One of them, however, has a history of obsessive behaviour with other friends she's had, and is really quite bizarre in her thoughts and behaviour. What makes this book so fascinating is it is this "weird" (for want of a better word) character (Barbara) who narrates the book; therefore, she thinks SHE is in control of the story, and the story as far as she's concerned is about the other main character's affair with one of the students at the school. But for the READER, the real story is Barbara herself. As the story progresses, she becomes increasingly more sinister, and it becomes impossible to put this book down. I don't want to write anymore and spoil any of what's in store for other readers. This book is simply not to be missed.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing little novel September 24, 2006

By Gregory Baird VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

One goes into Zoe Heller's "What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal," a novel with a blowout of a premise, with some heavy expectations. What you get is a slightly unexpected but nonetheless worthwhile and intriguing reading experience, even if you can't help but wish there had been just a little of the melodrama you had anticipated. Heller's narrative, centered on the scandal surrounding forty-one-year-old Sheba Hart -- who has been caught having a sexual relationship with a sixteen-year-old student at the school where she teaches pottery classes, is remarkably staid and free of soap opera theatrics (even though she does imbue her tale with a dose of humor for levity). Heller focuses less on the aftermath of Sheba getting caught than she does on the year and a half preceding the uproar -- the time period in which Sheba first caught the student's eye, slowly got drawn into the affair, and began to lose control to an obsession over her young lover. Heller is struggling to answer the question that she has posed in the title: what was this otherwise right-thinking woman doing getting involved with a student? She does a passable job hinting at how it happens, but never really overcomes the vagaries of her characters. In the end you have theories but no concrete rulings on the how and why of it. I personally appreciate some of the room left for conjecture, but I can see how others would be left frustrated and put off by the vagueness of it all. At any rate, it is quite interesting to follow Sheba's collision course for disaster. The novel also has an unexpected sub-plot involving Barbara Covett, the spinsterly narrator of the story who is harboring an obsession of her own -- on her friendship with Sheba.... Because Barbara is busy narrating Sheba's story -- and remains thoroughly unaware of how odd her obsession is or of just how deep it seems to run -- you are only afforded glimpses of how or why she behaves the way that she does. Barbara is only seen through the prism of her relationship with Sheba, with only hints at her formative years with a poor family and an aggressively religious sister. This would make a great choice for a book club, because I am sure that every reader could take away a slightly different interpretation of this novel that would make for great discussions (or, potentially, arguments). A film adaptation is coming later this year, and I can't wait to see how Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench flesh out their characters, but I think that I will miss the way the novel allows you to come to your own conclusions. Read more ›

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars more interesting, more character depth than the movie March 1, 2007

By sjr

Format:Paperback

In this story with a first-person narrator (Barbara) recounting the scandal her friend (Sheba) has gotten herself into, I disagree with the reviewers who accepted the narrator's point of view at face value. I think Barbara's account of the scandal is deeply unreliable, even when she reports her own messy part in the story. But that's one of the exciting factors in reading this swiftly moving story, trying to figure out what actually happened versus Barbara's narrative of what happened. As for the very open-ended last page, it may be frustrating for those who like their ends all neatly tied up (and it's quite different from the movie), but it does leave the reader wondering whether Barbara really has everything as under control as she thinks she does.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark tale of love, friendship and obsession August 23, 2003

By CoffeeGurl HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

Craving something different, I picked up Zoe Heller's What Was She Thinking? with utmost anticipation. The synopsis had promised a dark, lurid tale of love, friendship and obsession. This is one of the most gripping novels I've read in quite some time.

Barbara Covett, a sixty-year-old schoolteacher and notorious spinster, has lived a rather monotonous existence. That is until she meets Sheba Hart. Sheba's slight eccentricities intrigue Barbara. A friendship ensues, but things take a disarming turn when Sheba confesses to having an affair with one of her fifteen-year-old students. A forty-two-year-old married woman, Sheba has a lot to lose if word gets out about the affair. Barbara becomes her confidante, but her intentions are rather sinister...

As mentioned earlier, What Was She Thinking? is an engrossing and gripping tale of love, friendship and obsession. The novel's structure and storytelling is rather different from the books I've read recently - and that's a good thing. I couldn't put this down. The darkness of the novel enthralled me from the first paragraph. Zoe Heller is a talented English author who has made her mark in contemporary literature. Her style is rather similar to Margot Livesey's, one of my favorite authors. Highly recommended...