Nora Ephron was a star writer, talk show habitue and media darling when magazines were everything and such a career was possible. This was in the 1960s and ’70s, when she contributed to Esquire and New York. Still, she was not yet famous-famous until 1983, when “Heartburn” happened.
Nora Ephron’s novel ‘Heartburn’ still scorches 40 years later
The book, a roman à clef about her messy breakup with Carl Bernstein, is a classic of literary revenge
Analysis by Karen Heller