Hello everyone
You may not know the name Nora Ephron, but you probably know her work. She wrote the screenplay for: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, or You’ve Got Mail.
But before these movies, she wrote a novel called Heartburn.
Roman à Clef
Heartburn is a roman à clef—in other words, a work of fiction which cleaves to the contours of real-life events. Think of it as a retelling of facts where names have been changed and a few plot points tidied up to make the book flow for the reader.
Indeed, in the introduction, Ephron notes that she has no argument with the description of Heartburn as a thinly disguised version of the truth. And while there are events in the novel that didn’t happen in real life, the starting point did.
That starting point: when seven months pregnant with her and her husband’s second child, Ephron found that her husband was cheating on her.
Mark Feldman
The husband in Heartburn is Mark Feldman, a journalist with a syndicated column.
Feldman shares many similarities with Carl Bernstein, Ephron’s husband (former husband by the date of the book’s publication) and one of the journalists who broke the Watergate Scandal which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon (and to the addition of the -gate suffix to denote every future scandal).
And for completeness, the person with whom Bernstein had an affair is now a member of the House of Lords.
The Story
The story in Heartburn is quite thin. I suspect that is because it adheres so closely to the facts. It’s also quite an uncomfortable read—it’s very much like reading someone’s personal diary.
The novel is very much of it’s time. It is set in the 1980s and depicts the life of what we might call a yuppie power couple. As such, that element seems dated and less than gripping.
However, what is very obvious is Ephron’s pain. It’s not simply that her husband cheated—and cheated when she was seven months pregnant by him—but that he wanted them to remain married and for her to accept the affair, while he took no responsibility for the misery he unleashed.
Movie
The book is worth reading (with the cautions noted above).
There was a movie made—Ephron wrote the screenplay. Meryl Streep played the Ephron character and Jack Nicholson played the Bernstein character. Despite the stellar cast and excellent performances, I just didn’t enjoy the movie.
On screen, the story is told from the outside where the novel tells the tale from the inside, so you see—and understand—Ephron’s pain. The movie shows none of Bernstein’s charm, not that there’s much in the book…but at least he has some redeeming characteristics which are missing in the movie. These elements in the novel go some way to explaining why Ephron was with Bernstein in the first place.
Until May
A roman à clef is one way to tell a story, and it’s a technique that has been used before and since, both in novels and in movies.
Of course, one of the benefits of using the technique is deniability—it is nearly impossible to libel someone when they are not named directly. For the wronged, the vengeful, and anyone who wants free rein to criticize, it’s a great technique.
So who do you think is worthy of deniable scorn?
I’ll be back in May.
All the best
Simon