Heartburn (1983) by Nora Ephron

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Heartburn (1983)

by Nora Ephron

Apthorp Building, West 79th Street and Broadway, Manhattan, New York

Manhattan: 26/33

New York: 75/105

   The Audiobook edition I checked out was narrated by Meryl Streep!  Of course, we all know Nora Ephron as the amazing writer-director who defined the rom-com for a generation (my parent's generation, more or less), but I didn't know she also wrote this novel, about a woman, seven months pregnant, who discovers her Washington pundit husband is cheating on her.  I see now that Streep played the Ephron character in the film so the Audiobook makes sense.  Heartburn was loosely based on her marriage to Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein.  Like you would expect, Heartburn is filled with charm and whimsy, so I found the behavior of the 30 somethings in the book to be despicable- who cheats on his wife when she is seven months pregnant?  Journalist Carl Bernstein.  But overall it really does hold up over forty years after publication- her observations still evoke laughter.