![]() In fact, the novel we are reading is Barbara’s chronicle of Sheba’s inappropriate sexual adventures with Steven. Of course, all of this information – as well as everything that follows – we have to take with a grain of salt, because we are getting it third-hand, according to Barbara. NOTES ON A SCANDAL DRIVERSteven comes from a disadvantaged background, lives in the London projects, and has a working-class taxi driver dad. She is flattered by the attention, and ends up falling in love with one of them, the 15-year-old Steven Connolly, whose artistic talent makes him stand out in her class. George’s standards, and all the teen boys develop crushes on her. George’s Comprehensive School, the decrepit high school in London where Barbara teaches, hires 41-year-old Sheba Hart as an art and pottery teacher. A wry, cynical, and appealing commentator on what she observes, Barbara is very class-conscious, hyper-attentive to detail, and clearly profoundly and depressingly lonely. ![]() Our narrator is Barbara Covett, a history teacher in her 60s who is unmarried, has no kids, and no close friends. As readers learn more and more about the narrator – another teacher who is seemingly only tangentially involved with the events – we realize that the novel is actually about a stalker-like obsession. Heller’s narrative, which seems to focus on a middle-aged teacher’s scandalous affair with one of her high school students, actually turns out to be about another relationship altogether. Zoe Heller’s novel Notes on a Scandal was published in 2003, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize that year. ![]()
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