Rachel's self-esteem takes a huge battering as Mark has an affair with Thelma Rice (based on Margaret Jay) and she takes her revenge by telling the Washington grapevine that Thelma has a venereal disease. Threaded through the whole are recipes and anecdotes which drive the story along and humanize Samstat. The book wittily describes the life of an upper middle class intellectual couple replete with neuroses-Rachel is in group therapy, Mark agonizes over the mystifying disappearance of his socks. They have one son, Sam, and Rachel is pregnant with their second child as the book begins. Rachel is a Jewish New Yorker who has moved to Washington, D.C., to support her husband's career. The narrator of the novel is Rachel Samstat (based on Nora Ephron), a food writer who is married to Mark Feldman (based on Carl Bernstein), a political journalist. It is Nora Ephron's first published novel but in it she mentions subjects that she would go on to feature in future work such as When Harry Met Sally.

Its strong autobiographical content provides insight into one of the 'power couples' of the late 1970s. The novel is a vivid depiction of the breakdown of a marriage. Ephron also wrote the screenplay for the 1986 film adaptation. Originally published in 1983, the novel draws inspiration from events arising from Bernstein's affair with Margaret Jay, the daughter of former British prime minister James Callaghan. Heartburn is an autobiographical novel based on Nora Ephron's marriage to and divorce from Carl Bernstein, her second husband.

Heartburn novel by nora ephron