Thursday, November 24, 2016


Welcome back to ATB's renowned, recurring, book review, BACK JACKET HACK JOB! Cheryl Oreglia here, and let me just say I am horrified, I mean honored, to be the writer for this memorable fifteenth installment. I confess it gave me heartburn. So in honor of Thanksgiving, anxiety, and multiple deadlines I offer you a new back jacket hack job for the famed novel by Nora Ephron, appropriately entitled Heartburn. It's just too perfect. Right? Hack away I will, with a neutralizing look at indigestion, infidelity, and key-lime pie. And yes, I get paid by the comments, so do be generous.

Rachel Samstat is mad.

Heartburn might be the result of Ephron's real life experience of infidelity, but this book is full of witty euphemisms about life, and in spit of it all she keeps her sense of humor intact. It's a story about a husband who goes out to buy socks every evening but comes home empty handed only to say, "You would not believe how hard it is to find a decent pair of socks in this city." It takes Rachel four weeks to catch on. This is life. I sometimes feel I am the last to know what my kids are doing, why my dog is looking so guilty, and who keeps leaving packages on the front porch. But I persevere and so should you. A writer always gets the last word.

Rachel Samstat fights back.

Infidelity is horrible but Ephone spins her experience into a gut wrenching comedy. She is bold, honest, and refreshingly real. Who hasn't been deceived, heartbroken, and dubbed the idiot? I can relate, "Thelma Rice, a fairly tall person with a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs, never mind her feet, which are sort of splayed." Ephron brings the other woman "Thelma" brilliantly to life, repeatedly harping on her oversized nose and ugly feet. This is how writer's deal, "everything is copy."

Rachel Samstat wins.

Key-lime pie smashed in the face of her adulterous, insouciant, hack job of a husband is how she ends the relationship for good. Bravo Nora Ephron. She will not go quietly into the night, "If I throw this pie at him, he will never love me. But he doesn't love me anyway. So I can throw the pie if I want to. I picked up the pie, thanked God for the linoleum floor, and threw it. It landed mostly on the right side of Mark's face, but that was good enough." A win is a win. Sometimes the only thing available to right all the wrongs in the world is pie. 

Heartburn is a must read, available at Amazon, it might be worth the purchase just to see the drone. Just sayin... 

Haven't had enough? Mosey on over to Living in the Gap, drop-ins welcome.


Carrie Beckort said...

Great hack, Cheryl! Perfect title for Thanksgiving. There was no pie throwing at our table, but heartburn might have made an appearance ;)

Cheryl Oreglia said...

Thank you Carrie! We also overindulged at our thanksgiving meal and then we ate our pies. Total bliss...

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