Zoe Heller juggles journalism and novel-writing successfully in Notes on a Scandal and manages to say something interesting and complex about moral panics and the people who get caught up in them.
Pottery teacher Sheba lets herself be talked into an affair with 15-year-old pupil Connolly; part of what is admirable about this novel is that there is no real attempt to extenuate this--it's wrong and she knows this from the start, enough to lie to herself and others about it. It's an abuse of her very limited power--he is one of the few of her pupils interested in art, not interested in perpetually disrupting her lessons.
Sheba is not alone in abusing power, though, and Heller forces us to confront this unpleasant truth about the moralising, managerial headmaster, the husband freed by Sheba's action to seduce his own very slightly older students, and the relatives who never liked her much and can now disown her. Above all, she devotes most of the novel to Barbara, the older colleague who becomes Sheba's confidante and slowly manipulates the situation to make Sheba entirely dependent on her. This is a brilliantly gloomy study in obsession--and the obsession in question is not actually Sheba's with her underage lover. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Zoe Heller's second novel is the sort of book you get through in one sitting. It's centred around Barbara and Sheba, teachers at St George's, where Sheba, the new pottery teacher, livens up the proceedings at the school, first with her charisma and then with her affair with a student. Barbara, the 'incubus' as she is described, is an uncomfortable and stifling woman, but her humanity has her jumping out of the page at you: you've met her before, you didn't like her and were probably scared of her. Both women are very ordinary, making their complex psychologies all the more disturbing. In fact, all of Heller's characters are alarmingly recognizable, and the situations so familiar and real that you feel as though you are intruding upon something dangerous; the more you read the more you want to hide from the plot and the people she has created. The 'notes on a scandal' are Barbara's account of events as Sheba's circumstances hurtle out of control, with Barbara her unflinching, irrepressible stalwart, her 'notes' providing a turning point in the pair's unhealthy and compelling relationship. On the surface, Sheba may appear to be the only guilty party but those around, including her husband, other teachers and the media, all have a part to play in or something to gain from her downfall. Heller has written about the power of passion and the horrors of repression in an earthy, stingingly humorous satire that puts every other book of this ilk in the shadows. This novel is guaranteed to have you hooked from the first word to the last. Simply genius. (Kirkus UK)

我第一次看他脫衣服，妳知道我想到什麼嗎？園子裡新鮮的蔬菜包在乾淨的白手帕裡；剛從土裡出來的蘑菇。他的身體還是一個新玩具，大人對身體莫不在乎的態度，他還沒學會。
芭芭拉是個資深的歷史教師，一個人過著形單影隻的日子，除了貓咪波波，她少有朋友，更無密友，直到認識了新來的陶藝老師希芭。隨著友誼的進展，另外一段關係也隨之展開：希芭和一個未成年的男學生開始熱戀。戀情曝光後，希芭不可避免地成為媒體炒作新聞的話題。芭芭拉決定撰文為朋友辯護──這些文字不僅把毫不知情的希芭的秘密揭露了，連自己的私密也洩漏了。
這是一部敘述壓抑與激情、忌妒與自滿、友情與孤寂的故事；也是一部描寫複雜心理的諷刺小說，既促狹有趣又犀利陰損，曾獲2003年布克獎提名，作者因此書而躋身英國一流小說家之林。

在线阅读本书
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Now a Major Motion Picture
Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a solitary life until Sheba Hart, the new art teacher at St. George's, befriends her. But even as their relationship develops, so too does another: Sheba has begun an illicit affair with an underage male student. When the scandal turns into a media circus, Barbara decides to write an account in her friend's defense--and ends up revealing not only Sheba's secrets, but also her own.

在线阅读本书
When the new teacher first arrives, Barbara immediately senses that this woman will be different from the rest of her staff-room colleagues. But Barbara is not the only one to feel that Sheba is special, and before too long Sheba is involved in an illicit affair with a pupil. Barbara finds the relationship abhorrent, of course, but she is the only adult in whom Sheba can properly confide. So when the liaison is found out and Sheba's life falls apart, Barbara is there...