Heart of the Matter

by Emily Giffin

[Leah]

Tessa Russo knows what it’s like to be married to someone always on call. Her husband Nick Russo is a leading pediatric surgeon and when a call comes in on the night of their anniversary, she knows it’s not his fault and has learned to live being married to a man dedicated to his job. Valerie Anderson is a single mother who takes nothing for granted so when a phone-call comes in telling her that her son, Charlie, has been in an accident, her whole world collapses and she only begins to feel hope again when Nick Russo enters her life, telling her that he’s going to do his best to look after Charlie. However, something seems to shift – not only between Tessa and Nick but between Nick and Valerie. As all three of their lives and relationships are put to the test, can they all get the future they so desperately want?


Anyone who knows me knows that Emily Giffin’s debut novel Something Borrowed is one of my favourite books ever. I thought it was an outstanding work of fiction and since then I’ve managed to read the rest of Emily’s books. The trouble came when it turned out I wasn’t as huge a fan of her other works. Something Blue was OK, Babyproof was good but I really wasn’t a fan of Love The One You’re With. Back in 2009, though, I received an email from Emily’s American publishers via her newsletter service telling me I could read the first chapter of her new book Heart of the Matter and I eagerly went over to the site to read it. I really quite enjoyed it and I could see it was different from her usual works. I was excited to receive a proof copy from Emily’s publishers and couldn’t wait to get started.

Heart of the Matter starts well enough, introducing us to Tessa and her husband Nick who are out for their anniversary for the first time in a couple of months. Then the call comes in, telling Nick that there’s been an accident and he’s needed at the hospital. Tessa, understanding this after so many years of it happening, lets him go and we’re then introduced to Valerie Anderson. It turns out that it’s her son who has had an accident whilst he was at a sleepover at a friends house. At first the relationship between Nick, Valerie and Charlie seems innocuous enough, a doctor treating his patient and the mother of the patient being hugely grateful. However as the chapters progress, it seems to become something more than that; it seems that the normal doctor/patient relationship is evolving into some kind of strange friendship and, at that point, I liked how the book was progressing.

My problem with Heart of the Matter comes when Valerie and Nick’s friendship turns into the makings of a potential affair. Because the fact of the matter is it’s not as if Tessa and Nick’s marriage isn’t working. Sure, they appear to be having troubles but nothing that could explain away what Nick contemplates. After having a friend point it out, I began to see certain similarities to Something Borrowed but the one major difference is that Tessa isn’t at all like Darcy is in Something Borrowed; whereas Darcy was vain and shallow and self-obsessed, Tessa was nice and warm and they were polar opposites of each other. Valerie, who I suppose is our “Rachel” of the piece, didn’t really garner my sympathy the way in which Rachel managed. Yes, I felt sorry for everything her son was going through but bar that, I felt that everything she did, she did for herself. In Something Borrowed I believed in Rachel and Dex but in Heart of the Matter, I knew before it even began that Nick and Valerie weren’t right for each other and when the inevitable happened, I just felt disappointed and cheated.

I am in no way saying the book was bad, as I did quite enjoy it for the most part and I did manage to finish it very quickly, but as the predictability crept in, I found myself putting the book down feeling annoyed at just how cliched the entire thing was. One thing I did like about the book was the re-appearance of the aforementioned Rachel and Dex. It appears that Tessa is Dex’s sister so that was a nice surprise, getting to see them again and learning of how life has treated them. The alternating points of view – Tessa in first person, Valerie in third person – did allow for a little sympathy for both women but I found myself with Tessa more than Valerie. It does seem as though Emily put in Valerie’s perspective to try and make Valerie an easier character to like but it didn’t work for me and while I did like her in the beginning, I began to like her less and less as the book progressed. The ending seemed rushed to me, too. Everything seemed to happen at once and then we just came to the end. I feel that it needed an epilogue or another few chapters just to give us some kind of actual ending. It was all a bit abrupt, and dare I say, a bit wishy-washy.

Overall, although I did read it fairly quickly and would say I enjoyed it, Heart of the Matter just wasn’t on par with Something Borrowed. I’m sure a lot of people will enjoy the book and I’m also sure it will divide a lot of people over the morals of what happens in the book but for me, it didn’t live up to my expectations. There were parts of the book that really worked for me but others that just made me want to put it down and never pick it up again. Emily Giffin is clearly a talented writer but the workings of Heart of the Matter just didn’t work for me and I couldn’t help feeling disappointed by that.