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Title details for What Was She Thinking? by Zoë Heller - Available

What Was She Thinking?

Notes on a Scandal

by Zoë Heller
Wanda McCaddon
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

A complex psychological portrait framed as a wicked satire, a story of passion and repression, mercy and betrayal

Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a bitter, lonely life as a self-made careerist. Sheba Hart is the ethereal, inexperienced new pottery teacher at St. George's school. When Barbara hears of Sheba's problems in the classroom, her sympathy soon leads to friendship and confidence.

But Barbara is unprepared for the secret she will learn: that Sheba has begun a passionate affair with an underage male student. Barbara's confusion, disapproval, and jealousy are helpless to prevent the coming disaster.

When the story comes to light and Sheba falls prey to the inevitable media circus, Barbara decides to write an account in her friend's defense, an account that reveals not only Sheba's secrets but her own. What results is a complex psychological portrait framed as a wicked satire, a story of passion and repression, mercy and betrayal.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    January 1, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481565127
      • File size: 214754 KB
      • Duration: 07:27:24

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Barbara Covett, lonely sixtyish London schoolteacher, becomes enthralled with Sheba, a younger fellow teacher. Sheba, married and a mother, has an affair with a 15-year-old student. How Barbara handles this is the meat of this neatly written story. Nadia May IS Barbara--self-deluding, jealous, controlling, snide though always civil. May gives voice to subordinate characters as well. The faithless teenager, Sheba's bratty daughter, Sheba herself (increasingly desperate as the boy loses interest), the pompous headmaster all come to life to add to what is a sad and riveting story. Dame Judi Dench plays Barbara in the movie (NOTES ON A SCANDAL); it's difficult to imagine she does it any better than this audio portrayal. J.B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 26, 2003
      A starred or boxed review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred or boxed review. WHAT WAS SHE THINKING? Zoë Heller. Holt, $23 (288p) ISBN 0-8050-7333-7 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. Author tour. (Aug.)Forecast:Some readers will pass this up as yet another take on the shopworn theme of student/teacher romance, but Heller's light touch will win over others and please reviewers.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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