What Was She Thinking?

A lonely schoolteacher reveals more than she intends when she records the story of her best friend’s affair with a pupil in this sly, insightful novel.

Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a solitary life until Sheba Hart, the new 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 her own.

What Was She Thinking? is a story of repression and passion, envy and complacence, friendship and loneliness. A complex psychological portrait framed as a wicked satire, it is by turns funny, poignant, and sinister. With it, Zoë Heller surpasses the promise of her critically acclaimed first novel, Everything You Know.

The basis of the 2006 film, Notes on a Scandal, starring Judi Dench and Kate Blanchett.

Praise for What Was She Thinking?

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

A New York Times Notable Book

One of the Best Books of 2003, Esquire and Entertainment Weekly

“Equally adroit at satire and at psychological suspense, Heller charts the course of a predatory friendship and demonstrates the lengths to which some people go for human company.” —The New Yorker

“A deliciously perverse, laugh-out-loud-funny novel.” —Vogue

“A triumph of intelligence and narrative control.” —The London Times (UK)

“Heller is a great ventriloquist of character, and as the unhinged curator of the Sheba affair, Barbara is painfully note perfect.” —The Washington Post Book World (Best Books of 2003)