Zoë Heller's Notes on a Scandal poses to be something entirely different from what it truly is. Her creation of Sheba as highly desirable and with a certain damsel in distress syndrome, enabled the character to be looked at with a male gaze unknowingly. But what is so wild about it is the fact that the young Sheba becomes a figure of obsession for the sixty-ish Barbara Covett.

Barbara's act of befriending Sheba to the extent where she becomes completely indispensable in her life was an act of breaking free from the lonely life that she has lead for the longest time. Sheba's secret affair with the fifteen year old Stephen provides Barbara with more tools to weaponize her friendship by silently being a compliance to her predatory behaviour. As titillating it sounds, the novel is from the eyes of Barbara Covett who is not the moral stance as someone would imagine an old school teacher to be. Her fixation with Barbara takes a reprobating turn as she assumes the role of a person harbouring the interests of a child molester. It is quite perplexing to comprehend what Barbara desires, Sheba or Sheba's life?

Heller's fine writing about a tale so grotesque kept me turning the pages and despite being a lonely woman, Barbara's narrative is anything but mundane. She has appointed herself as the one to immortalize Sheba in her journal, but what she does quite carelessly is expose her repugnant desires. Sheba's and Barbara's obsessions are both aligned with the eternal yearning of youth's vibrance, Heller brilliantly writes this tragicomedy about overpowering stalkerish infatuation. Disturbing yet confusingly entertaining, Notes on a Scandal elevates the psychological fiction genre.

Rating: 4.5/5⭐