Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1111701 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Customer Reviews

sinister storytelling
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!

Scandalously good!
I really enjoyed this book. The main reason was that it was so much darker than I has anticipated. On one level, it is an excellent, sensitive exploration of the relationship between an older, married school teacher (Sheba) and her (underage) teenage lover(Connolly). Zoe Heller manages to explore our attitudes to this, and how the situation came about, without being judgemental or sentimental. What makes it really exceptional though, is the narration, which is carried out by Sheba's supposed friend Barbara. This gives a whole new dimension to the novel, as you realise that all you read has come through Barbara, and has her interpretation put on them. Where does Barbara fit in and could she be interfering for hre own ends? A wonderful,interesting, sinister, startling book.