What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal Book

Move over Stephen King, now this is scary shit.

I'll admit, it's frightening that Sheba, a grown woman with children, can abandon her senses to the point of having a sexual affair with her 15 year old student, putting her whole privileged life at risk. The consequences of such a scandalous relationship bring nothing short of disaster for Sheba's family, her career, her reputation. Even when the reader can see these consequences advancing as though in slow motion, we shield our eyes from the impending doom.

But what really filled me with horror is Barbara, the prim, perfectly respectable older woman in the shadows, taking notes and keeping score. She lives alone, with no one but an ageing cat to care if she is dead or alive. Her painful, brutal aloneness drives her in perpetual need to be seen, to rank, to prove she exists. It's what turns her into a sinister succubus for attention, and, ironically, is what sets her apart from everyone around her.

Before you go and feel sorry for her, imagine: this emotional vampire, insidious as invisible ink, inveigles her way into a position of trust, wielding her power in order to satisfy her greedy, endlessly deprived appetite for validation. A secret agenda colours her every action. She's the penny that keeps turning up. The smell that won't go away. She's there every time you turn around, offering "help" and "friendship". She hasn't forgotten about you, especially the secrets you told her in moments of wrongly placed trust. This control freak stops at nothing to find a place to belong, even if this place is stolen, at great price to you. Her victimhood is long, her claws very, very sharp.

All this leads one to a chicken/egg type of question. Lonely because she's so toxic, or toxic because she's so lonely?

This brilliant story touches on many topics, including class, monogamy, and repressed sapphic desires. It is also good fodder for conversation regarding the double standard of an adult woman in a sexual relationship with a boy, versus a man in such a relationship with a girl. But it seems to me that above all, this book is about Barbara and the albatross of sick, festering loneliness she carries around. Beware anyone who is kind or naive enough to allow her into their life.

Zoe Heller has written a compelling story which is speckled with humour amid the dark, secretive caverns of its disturbing main character. I'd love to read her again.