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Notes on a Scandal [Paperback]

Zoë Heller
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Book Description

18 Jan 2007

Film tie-in edition of Zoë Heller's darkly compelling Booker shortlisted novel. The film of Notes on a Scandal received four Oscar nominations and stars Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench.

From the first day that the beguiling Sheba Hart joins the staff of St George's history teacher Barbara Covett is convinced she has found a kindred spirit. Barbara's loyalty to her new friend is passionate and unstinting and when Sheba is discovered having an illicit affair with one of her pupils, Barbara quickly elects herself as Sheba's chief defender. But all is not as it first seems in this dark story and, as Sheba will soon discover, a friend can be just as treacherous as any lover.

'Brilliant, nasty, gripping' Zadie Smith

'Compelling, dark, sexy' Observer

'Superbly gripping. One of the most compelling books I've read in ages' Daily Telegraph

'Deliciously sinister' Daily Mail

Zoë Heller is the author of three novels, Everything You Know, Notes on a Scandal, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and The Believers. The 2006 film adaptation of Notes on a Scandal, starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, received four Oscar nominations. She lives in New York.


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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; FILM TIE-IN edition (18 Jan 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0141029064
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141029061
  • Product Dimensions: 1.7 x 12.9 x 19.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon Review

Zoe Heller juggles journalism and novel-writing successfully in Notes on a Scandal and manages to say something interesting and complex about moral panics and the people who get caught up in them.

Pottery teacher Sheba lets herself be talked into an affair with 15-year-old pupil Connolly; part of what is admirable about this novel is that there is no real attempt to extenuate this--it's wrong and she knows this from the start, enough to lie to herself and others about it. It's an abuse of her very limited power--he is one of the few of her pupils interested in art, not interested in perpetually disrupting her lessons.

Sheba is not alone in abusing power, though, and Heller forces us to confront this unpleasant truth about the moralising, managerial headmaster, the husband freed by Sheba's action to seduce his own very slightly older students, and the relatives who never liked her much and can now disown her. Above all, she devotes most of the novel to Barbara, the older colleague who becomes Sheba's confidante and slowly manipulates the situation to make Sheba entirely dependent on her. This is a brilliantly gloomy study in obsession--and the obsession in question is not actually Sheba's with her underage lover. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"An intense, witty, literary page-turner"--"Entertainment Weekly" "Equally adroit at satire and at psychological suspense, Zoe Heller charts the course of a predatory friendship and demonstrates the lengths to which some people go for human company."--"The New Yorker"
 
"A deliciously perverse, laugh-out-loud-funny novel."--"Vogue"
 
"A triumph of intelligence and narrative control."--"The Times" (London)
 
"Heller is a great ventriloquist of character, and as the unhinged curator of the Sheba affair, Barbara is painfully note perfect."--"The Washington Post Book World"
 
"Wicked and wonderful social satire."--"Glamour"

Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
The first time I ever saw Sheba was on a Monday morning, early in the winter term of 1996. Read the first page
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Deliciously scandalous ! 1 Nov 2006
Format:Paperback
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it is gripping and easy to read. Pick it up and you won't put it down until you've finished it - it's that engaging.

Zoe Heller has drawn two very interesting, complex protagonists in her character-driven drama, with its issues of loneliness, family and sexuality driving the prose. Heller is interested in the psychology of those issues, and she has considered their implications to great effect through her characters.

My only real gripe would be that occasionally it felt like the author prioritised brevity at the expense of backround and detail in order to make this a very tight, well-paced read. Perhaps this was down to her journalistic backround editing her a little over-zealously. But really this is a compliment because I could have happliy continued had there been another 200 pages !

Highly recommended.
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars sinister storytelling 24 Sep 2003
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Zoe Heller's novel about a slightly absent-minded teacher having an affair with her young pupil takes a sinister tone from the start. Told through her 'ever so devoted' best friend we discover a woman who has become the obsession of her doting carer. Heller flawlessly reveals Barbara's obsession through dark and very observational humour. This is a literary Single White Female with the narrator as a lonely old bitter, jealous and sinister woman living vicariously through her friend, taking advantage of her situation with chilling overtones that makes you really believe that she is sitting at night rocking and wearing her friend's clothes. Excellently written, very funny, dark with twinges of scary. Highly recommended as a very believable account of an obsessive woman and her strange life!
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars I'm a bloke and I liked it 16 Sep 2004
By OEJ TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
I ordered this book on the basis of its award nomination, having no idea of its subject matter. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, and it won't be for those who like murder mysteries or thrillers - but I liked it from the beginning and by the end, I loved it. Zoe Heller has a real talent for character development, and manages to portray the self-denied loneliness of a sixty-something spinster/schoolteacher in a sensitive and non-condescending manner yet with a good deal of tragic humour as well. I must have completed two-thirds of the book before I realised that the central character wasn't the woman at the heart of the scandal, but her note-maker and grateful friend who tells the story itself. The personalities of both women are artfully and painstakingly developed, along with their working colleagues and families, and for this reason I strongly recommend Notes on a Scandal as an education for other writers on how to tell a story with characters who readers can totally believe in. An astute observation on the trials and tribulations of the lonely, this book deserves its prize nomination and gets my strong recommendation.
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59 of 64 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars single white female 5 April 2004
By mfl VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
Notes on a scandal is a clever book. Be ready for something slightly different that will drag you in, slowly become addictive and then race you along on a rollercoaster ride of obsession, lust and misplaced loyalty.

Ostensibly it's a novel about a rookie pottery class schoolteacher Sheba joining a north London comprehensive with high ideals but no sense of distance or discipline to her pupils. With a family life of older husband, troublesome teenage daughter and down's syndrome son, she's lost a little of the spark and romance in her life. What once independence was, is left clinging to her hippy dress sense and cycling to work. Sheba needs to make a difference. And so she is easily swayed by an illiterate pupil with a modicum of artist desire and an overwhelming crush on Miss.

But no, this is not what Notes on a scandal is all about. Narrated by Barbara, Sheba's 60 year old teacher colleague, this is a sly diary peek into Barbara's take on the affair and Barbara's world. A disturbing one dimensional slant on Sheba's story and ultimately Barbara's lonely spinstered life.

Notes on a scandal is an exceptional book for the detail and insight into Barbara, who at first, we think to trust and then learn to either despise or feel wholly sad for her prejudiced, narrow and emotionless existence. Barbara craves comfort and love, she needs people to rely on her, she manipulates because she is emotionally bereft. This is what makes the novel so unerringly clever and devious, for we really cannot believe all we are reading about Sheba's plight from Barbara's barbarous interpretation.

Notes on a scandal is witty, cunningly observational about relationships and a stark insight into a warped mind. A great read that'll stay with you for some time.... Read more ›

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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars I'm a bloke and I liked it 7 Jan 2007
By OEJ TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
A tale about two very different female high-school teachers, one old and frumpy, the other young and attractive. The frumpy one becomes obsessed with her observations of the new young teacher, who gets involved in a scandal that could ruin her career.

I ordered and read this book back in 2004 on the basis of its MAN Booker award nomination, having no idea of its subject matter. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, and it might not be for those who, like me, usually buy murder mysteries or crime thrillers - but I liked it from the very beginning and by the end, I loved it. Zoe Heller has a real talent for character development, and manages to portray the self-denied loneliness of a sixty-something spinster/schoolteacher in a sensitive and non-condescending manner in combination with a good deal of tragic humour as well. I must have completed two-thirds of the book before I realised that it wasn't the woman at the heart of the scandal who was the central character, but her note-maker and grateful friend who tells the story itself. The personalities of both women are artfully and painstakingly developed, along with their working colleagues and families, and for this reason I strongly recommend Notes on a Scandal as an education for other writers on how to tell a story with characters who readers can totally believe in. An astute observation on the trials and tribulations of the lonely, this book deserves its prize nomination and gets my strong recommendation.

In 2007 the story was released as a film, which I have seen twice. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Judi Dench in the role of the elderly spinster and notemaker - she was just perfect. For once, this was a film that managed to pretty much equal the high standards of the novel on which it was based.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable
I still haven't seen the movie but I did enjoy this book, a good read but perhaps not a great one.
Published 1 month ago by Mia James
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable
Enjoyed reading this novel, but maybe expected more from the ending. Well written and quite frightening in parts. A good read.
Published 2 months ago by Rhiannon
5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant read
This is the only book i have read from Zoe Heller, its an excellent page turner.I admire the way Zoe Heller makes this story powerful.
Published 2 months ago by bookmoviefanatic
5.0 out of 5 stars I wasn't disappointed!
I really enjoyed this. I bought it when someone reminded me about the film which I saw years ago. The book fully lived up to expectations.
Published 4 months ago by Ms S McIntyre
4.0 out of 5 stars Captivating
Fantastic, captivating novel (especially the character development of fellow teachers). Reveals plot early on (in case you think other reviewers have ruined it). Read more
Published 6 months ago by Alasdair J A Barr
5.0 out of 5 stars "But elegance loses its power in the presence of the properly stupid."
This book is set up as a story about a teacher's unwholesome relationship with her pupil, however; narrated by Barbara an entirely different focus point develops. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Elizabeth Mounger
3.0 out of 5 stars Not good enough for the Booker
I read this book a few years ago, but a decision to order "Ancient Light" reminded me of the teenage boy/older woman theme. I admit "Notes" was unputdownable and vivid. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Hoka
5.0 out of 5 stars Soaring comic novel
Last month, Howard Riddle, Senior District Judge in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, handed down judgment in the case of Regina v. John Terry. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Metropolitan Critic
5.0 out of 5 stars Delighted
Most reasonable, arrived most promptly, packaged well, not a single notation of error. I was most pleased and would purchase a product woth you again.
Published 11 months ago by Roxy
4.0 out of 5 stars A clever story
I very much enjoyed reading this book. The story is well constructed and the plot opens out nicely as the book progresses. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jonny Monny
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