Novella a Day in May: Days 7 and 8

I did read my novellas (…sort of) on days 7 and 8, but I didn’t write yesterday because I was in London overnight. (I saw the musical &Juliet, and if you get a chance then please do so – it’s such a marvellous combination of 90s/00s pop and a clever spin on Shakespeare. It could have been purpose-made for me.)

Day 7: What the Neighbours Did (1972) by Philippa Pearce

On the train on the way there, I read What the Neighbours Did and other stories by Philippa Pearce – as you can tell by that title, it is a collection of stories rather than a novella. It’s one of those I bought on impulse online a decade or so ago, probably after (re)reading her masterpiece Tom’s Midnight Garden, but somehow didn’t get around to it. 

I thought that it was a collection for adults, and I suppose you could argue it is, but every story features children. The events are quite mundane – a tree being felled, a midnight feast, going blackberry-picking – but Pearce fills them with expansive wonder. Everyone and everything feels so free in this collection. The children head out for adventures in the countryside on their own, as every generation believes they were the last to do, and somehow Pearce gives these stories the feel that they will be treasured memories – like we are seeing the creation of nostalgia in the moment.

This edition also has the bonus of characterful illustrations by Faith Jaques. They give added beauty to a collection that is quietly joyful.

Day 8: Heartburn (1983) by Nora Ephron

Last year, in a work ‘secret’ Santa, I was given Heartburn by Nora Ephron. I put ‘secret’ in inverted commas because I know it was my good friend Katherine, and she chose very well. A bit of a gamble to get such a well-known book, but I hadn’t read it and had long intended to.

Heartburn is a fairly (but not completely) autobiographical novella about a cookbook writer called Rachel discovering that her husband Mark is having an affair while she is seven months pregnant with their second child. It covers the next couple of months, but also fills in the gaps about Rachel’s first unsuccessful marriage, as well as how she and Mark met and fell in love. 

Ephron writes just brilliantly, and I’m going to spend most of this short review sharing quotes… like this one, which was the first bit I noted down:

It is of course hideously ironic that the occasion for my total conversion to fidelity was my marriage to Mark, but timing has never been my strong point; and in any case, the alternative, infidelity, doesn’t work. You have only a certain amount of energy, and when you spread it around, everything gets confused, and the first thing you know, you can’t remember which one you’ve told which story to, and the next thing you know, you’re moaning, “Oh, Morty, Morty, Morty,” when what you mean is “Oh, Sidney, Sidney, Sidney,” and the next thing you know, you think you’re in love with both of them simply because you’ve been raised to believe that the only polite response to the words “I love you” is “I love you too,” and the next thing you know, you think you’re in love with only one of them, because you’re too guilty to handle loving them both.

She is very funny, and often takes sentences in a different direction than expected – both in terms of what they are saying, and the emotion she is conveying. For example…

My father said a lot of terrific daddy things to me that made me cry even harder, partly because the dialogue was completely lifted from an obscure Dan Dailey movie he’s played a pediatrician in, and partly because he nevertheless delivered the lines so very well.

Along the way, food is an important factor. Several actual recipes are included, and my edition even has an index of the different recipes as people clearly try them out. I might give the bread and butter pudding a go, and need to find out if her vinaigrette is really as marvellous as she suggests. The food isn’t incidental either; it connects with various stages of her life and her journey. And it gives way to this glorious quote about the association we have between specific cooking techniques and people we’ve known:

The next man I was involved with lived in Boston. He taught me to cook mushrooms. He taught me that if you heat the butter very hot and put just a very few mushrooms into the frying pan, they come out nice and brown and crispy, whereas if the butter is only moderately hot and you crowd the mushrooms, they get all mushy and wet. Every time I make mushrooms I think of him. There was another man in my life when I was younger who taught me to put sour cream into scrambled eggs, and since I never ever put sour cream into scrambled eggs I never really think of him at all.

The author I kept thinking about, as I read Heartburn, was Anita Loos and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I don’t know if that’s a common comparison or not, but it has the same feeling of words tumbling out uncontrollably. The same endless self-reflection, but never pausing to get any of the benefit of it. Everything is told quite matter-of-factly, so even when Rachel is telling us how heartbroken she is, it comes in a stream of other stories and events and thoughts, so somehow the book maintains an even emotional keel in the telling.

Though I saw comparisons to Loos, Ephron has a really distinct voice here – and one that is kept up successfully throughout. I thought it was marvellous, and wonderful that somebody capable of writing such a cynical comedy of a novel could also write quintessential romantic comedies.