What was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller

I saw the movie version of this book before I read the book itself. I loved the movie so much that I mooched the book at BookMooch that same night when I got home from the cinema! I was curious to see if the movie and the book were remotely alike (considering how often movie versions of books end up nothing like the original storyline) and I was not disappointed.

The storyline is a disturbing one; a female teacher becomes involved in a sexual relationship with a teenage male student. This isn’t as farfetched as you might like to think (or hope) it would be as such events have been prominent in the news over the last few years. Zoe Heller’s intriguing and slightly distasteful tale introduces two of the most captivating characters I have encountered in a novel, Barbara and Sheba. Barbara is the quintessential almost elderly spinster and Sheba is the fey like upper class bohemian. The juxtaposition between these two women only serves to reinforce the many diametric opposites that permeate this novel.

The supporting characters are almost as intriguing and it would be interesting to hear their version of the events that make up this story. However the reader is only ever exposed to Barbara’s perspective. Even though Barbara maintains that Sheba has related events so many times that she (Barbara) feels like she was actually there for all of them, Barbara’s own biases are more than apparent and it is because of the filter they provide that we are spared much of the insufferable romantic outlook Sheba has on the whole affair.

Barbara is the sort of friend that you can never work out if you want them in or out of your life and the naive Sheba is enmeshed in her web. While Barbara comes across as somewhat frightening with her stalker like manner, Sheba’s ingénue makes you want to slap her. One has to wonder what would make an educated, attractive wife and mother in a position of authority take up with a student such as Stephen Connelly. Whatever it is, it is real as this type of behaviour seems to be becoming more common in the wider community. While there doesn’t appear to be any malice in Sheba’s actions and she doesn’t mean Connelly any harm, there is no excuse for her abuse of her position of power. But for some reason the reader is left not knowing whether to pity her or condemn her. A similar conundrum is experienced in relation to Barbara’s character and many of the supporting cast. I think this is a good part of why Heller’s tale is so captivating. It captures the essence of the human condition in that there is good and bad in all of us.