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Sep 02, 2011

Corny rated it:

Zoe Heller weaves a wonderful tale of a dysfunctional family which loses its glue when its patriarch is felled by a stroke in the first chapter. The characters are believable and, for the most part, not very admirable. They struggle against each other, their surroundings, and finally against their dark sides. Audrey, the bereaved wife, with the mouth from Hell is counterintuitively a sympathetic character. Karla battles a weight problem, and Lenny a drug addiction while Rosa contemplates returni More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

marg rated it:

I did not get this book AT ALL. Having read and enjoyed Notes on a Scandal (and if you can get past THAT premise you're good to go for just about anything) I was sure I would like her new one.
Well. For one thing, while she is an eloquent writer with a nice vocabulary, she seems to have fallen into this new wave writing style of 'how many details can I toss in to seem perceptive?' Yes theoretically I could write aobut my daily commute in my novel and tell you about how my metro card didn' More...

23 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

Sanchia rated it:

Set in Heller’s adoptive US The Believers is a funny, highly original and adroit satire of New York’s liberal elite. The title, a wicked irony in itself, belies the books central characters, the Litvinoff tribe - a family of hard line antitheists who have rejected their Jewish heritage and proudly live by socialist values. The father Joel is a charismatic civil rights lawyer, his wife Audrey a raging pot smoking ultra-leftist. Their façade is shattered when Joel suffers a massive stroke and s More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 02, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

Book club selection for December.

I really liked Heller's writing, and her portraits of the characters were so unsparing and insightful. Unfortunately, some of the actions and dialogue don't ring true. The plot becomes a bit mundane and predictable, and only the completely outrageous and rather unbelievable actions of the protagonist(anti-hero?)keep the reader interested. I really like some of the story lines, but I feel like it would have been more effective as a collection of s More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

Beverly rated it:

Not as good as Notes on a Scandal. This is a readable story of a politically progressive New York Jewish family whose celebrity lawyer father suffers a stroke. As he lays in a coma, his family scurries around trying to come to terms with their own lives. Sloppily written (edited?). Heller thinks that Americans say things like "I dare say", "have it", and "try it on". One of the daughters moves into Orthodox Judaism; Heller also doesn't know that unmarried Orthodox w More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2009

Veronica rated it:

Zoe Heller excels at misanthropy. It can be funny (Everything You Know) or cringe-making (Notes on a Scandal) but here it just seemed to go a little too far. I felt like shaking Heller and saying, "You know, there are some people in the world who are kind and generous!". Not in Heller's world there aren't. Notes on a Scandal created a wonderful uneasiness, because I had a sneaking sympathy with Barbara while still being creeped-out by her behaviour. Here, Audrey is so horrible that you More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

May 25, 2009

Katie rated it:

I'll get back to you on this one, but my initial feeling is that while the prose can be wonderfully descriptive ("Up close, the three men were a small anthology of body odors"), the characters are so AWFUL, so sure of themselves in their political stances and moral superiority that even though it's clear that the author shares my opinion of them I am not sure I will be able to make it through.

****

It took me awhile to get back to this review, because I wanted to More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

Vicki rated it:

I read "Notes on a Scandal" and really liked it, so I was eager to read "The Believers", and enjoyed it very much. I wanted to slap most of the main characters -- they were totally selfish and clueless about the needs of others -- but they were also very real. Despite being very annoyed with these people, the writing was so wonderful that I wanted to just keep reading. This book would be great for discussion, I think. It has lots of meaty issues and characters with lots of More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 17, 2009

eb rated it:

Brilliant, mean, funny--but will I sound prissy if I complain that each and every American character speaks like a Brit? I don't get it. Where's the editor? Where's the kindly American friend who'll read a draft and say, "Zoe, I love this book, but Yanks don't say 'That's not been my impression,' we say, 'That wasn't my impression,' and we don't say 'Don't let's declare it a failure,' we say 'Let's not declare it a failure.'" It made me sad that this novel, which I loved so much, distr More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 02, 2011

Lauren rated it:

While this book was not as great as I'd hoped it would be, it reminds me that even disappointing novels are more engaging, vibrant and thought-provoking than bad TV. I didn't want to put it down. I felt the characters were a bit predictably static (and this wasn't part of some larger literary device), yet, they were all immediately familiar in an appealing way. I am a sucker for books that have something to do with leftist lawyers and their dysfunctional families (I loved reading Family Circle l More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

Diana rated it:

Wow--I couldn't put it down--every character in this novel about a New York city family is so fully drawn and believable. The matriarch of the family, Audry, who is outlandish and entertaining, could have been cartoonish, but Zoe Heller deftly gives us insights into her behavior that make us accept her as a character. No one in the book is particularly loveable or noble, but that is what makes it so interesting, and fun. This book exposes people in all of their hyprocrisies and weaknesses, fo More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

Briana rated it:

I read this on the plane/in the airport yesterday in a few hours. It's a book full of characters who are either miserable or loathsome (or both), and it was fun to read in kind of a train wreck kind of way, but I can't really recommend it. I thought the satire of aging leftists in 9/11-era New York was overly broad, and was done much more effectively in The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud a few years ago. I really, really enjoyed Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller quite a bit, so this book More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 17, 2009

Mike rated it:

One hundred pages in. I have often thought of Jane Austen as a bit too straitjacketed for my tastes, but you can always see--hell, you can feel--a ferocious rage at the hypocrisies and inanities and horrid behaviors of society, but coupled with a capacious compassion for all fools and foolishness. She really gets, but doesn't condemn, the horrible way people treat one another. I have often thought that, if alive in our era, Jane Austen would have kicked Kingsley Amis' ass.

Zoe Hell More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Martin added it

Yet another book I wouldn't have read without a reading group meeting - and am glad I did.

Heller has a cast of character that are thoroughly unhappy, most of all by being caught in their own habits. On paper, this book sort of lacks everything that makes a good book: there is no real closure, no real breaking free for the characters; yes, there is some development, but for the most part, there is no happy end (at least that's how I felt). And not all characters are really fleshed out (the son, e More...

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Apr 21, 2009

seanat (elka) rated it:

Like in Notes on a Scandal this was chocca full of unlikeable characters, but rather than put me off, I found it lots of fun.
As the characters developed and we learned more I may have even started caring for a few of them, routing for Karla, totally confused by Rosa.
Audrey, the most opinioned woman you would never want to meet went through the most upheaval and I am surprised to say I actually shed a tear for her at the end.
A very different read, funny , memorable and very dif More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

James rated it:

Despite the fact that this is a dismal, pessimistic novel, without much plot to speak of, and a cast of appallingly bleak and unhappy characters, I enjoyed it immensely. Primarily set in New York, it tells the tale of Audrey Litvinoff, a washed-up, aging political activist and her dysfunctional, adult family after her well-known, left-wing lawyer husband has a stroke. She is a bitter woman, and feels she it is her mission to insult everybody in it, the feverish anger of her youth, once a habit, More...

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Oct 07, 2011

Rafi rated it:

This book was excellent. It switches points of view so that you get various points of insight into the Litvinoff clan. There is Audrey, the cantankerous wife of civil rights attorney, Joel Litvinoff. She lives in his shadow and had developed an acrid, partly sarcastic personality to deal with living in her husband's shadow. Joel suffers a stroke, and the family must come together in ways that were never asked of them before. Plus, there is a family secret that comes tumbling out of the clos More...

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Sep 04, 2011

Wendy rated it:

It's well-written.

It flows well.

The characters are all people I'd like to throw under a bus. I've heard it said that it's not the job of an author to create characters you want to be best friends with. Okay, so maybe there are authors who like to explore themes and big ideas, and in doing so create a story with a purpose beyond storytelling. And maybe not all characters should be likable because it won't create any conflict and the story will be kind of flat and boring. H More...

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Aug 07, 2011

Yvonne rated it:

Clever, clever writing. The story didn't sound too enticing, but I loved it. Best thing I've read in a long time.

The Litvinoff's are leftist New Yorkers, mom Audrey and civil rights lawyer dad Joel spent their lives working for the good causes of the disenfranchised and became small c celebraties through their 'good works. Early in the story Joel has a stroke and remains in a coma. Audrey uses her considerable verbal skills as a weapon, often very humourously, to cut down anyone in her More...

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Jul 14, 2011

Maya rated it:

I liked it and thought she did a pretty good job for a Brit of describing America. FYI of note to some may be that she mentions Writers House obliquely (old communist party headquarters on 26th St.) I also thought prefacey first chapter showing us the meeting of Joel and Audrey was a good idea. Having that image of her as a young woman with life ahead of her then jumping ahead to old(er) woman with life behind her put an interesting spin on things.
Zoe Heller's writing reminded me a bit More...

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Mar 31, 2011

Jane rated it:

I really liked this book and although the characters are not particularly likeable, they are vulnerable. Heller in her storytelling leaves it to the reader to draw their own conclusions.

The early meeting between Joel and Audrey, as told in the prologue, is strange in its own way. They both notice each other in a chance encounter and he pursues her to the point of insisting he travels with her to visit her family. You do not really understand what they want from one another as they More...

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Jan 02, 2011

Neil rated it:

I read this just in front of, before, Franzen's Freedom, and the two are an interesting pairing.

This one is the story of a new york jewish family, although the parents are now ultra-liberal atheists, adn the three kids are finding their way too. Dad, a civil rights lawyer, suffers a stroke, and thus begins a challenging period for his very unlikeable wife and three troubled / searching kids, one of whom is a social worker having an affair with an egyptian new stand owner, another bec More...

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Oct 22, 2010

Amy rated it:

So, you bring this book on vacation. Your traveling companions notice you’re spending most every spare minute with it and ask what it’s about. “Oh, a family of radicals living in New York. The father’s a famous lawyer and the mother’s British. The kids are rebelling—one is converting to Orthodox Judaism and another’s a drug addict and the third is trying to adopt a kid.” You’re met with a puzzled look and no requests to borrow the book.

It’s hard to explain why this is a great read i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 19, 2010

Featherbooks rated it:

An unsentimental and compelling family drama about a political lawyer, possibly modeled after William Kunstler, who has a stroke and how his family reacts in various ways, particularly intensely by his distressed and furious wife, Audrey. I have friends who will say "but I didn't like the characters" to which the author replies in an interview in the October 1, 2008 issue of Time Out:
I read a review the other day that said, "Joel is the one charming character in the book More...

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Jun 27, 2010

Ruby rated it:

This was a satisfying book. A left-wing activist couple in New York City have 2 grown daughters and an adopted son; all have a "progressive" sensibility which works itself into their troubled and troubling relationships. Joel, the father, suffers a stroke on the day he is to defend an Arab-American arrested for having visited an Al-Quaida training camp, and is in a coma for the rest of the novel. But his influence is felt strongly by his foul-mouthed, angry wife Audrey, the least sy More...

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Jun 11, 2010

Maggie rated it:

This is a serious book. For people who know stuff. Big words. Marxist philosophy. Socialism. Orthodox Jews. Zoe Heller assumes people are "in the know" on all these things as she write this novel about a dysfunctional family in NYC.

Joel Litvinoff is a socialist New York lawyer who has a stroke and spend 99% of the novel in a coma, but because of his actions prior to his illness, we see what happens to his family now- and we get to know him a bit better.

I always More...

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Mar 03, 2010

Judith rated it:

I became interested in this book when I learned that the author also wrote "Notes on a Scandal" which was made into a really good movie a few years back (Cate Blanchett plays a school teacher who has an affair with her student, and is exposed by her supposed friend, Judy Dench). This book did not disappoint. I was captivated from the first page. The story concerns a NYC family who rallies around their father and mother when the father suffers a stroke which essentially puts him in a More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2010

Zed rated it:

I loved this author's evil snarky "Notes On A Scandal", but the follow-up, "Everything You Know", while also packed with delicious razor-sharp observations, was far too insubstantial in terms of story. Happily, "The Believers" both possesses these and a represents a return to form. Like the other two, the plot isn't clever: it simply sees a wife and her three grown-up children at turning points in their lives, and a few incidents feel just that, incidental, but the More...

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Dec 19, 2009

Judy rated it:

This book explores the thesis that every family is dysfuntional in its own unique way and that no one from the outside of a family can truly understand the dynamics among its members. Joel Litvinoff is a national known left-wing lawyer who thrives in championing the underdog and the dispised. He has a stroke in a courtroom at the start of a trial of a suspected terrorist and remains in a coma until the very end of the book. His family unravels during this medical and emotional crisis, althoug More...

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Feb 27, 2011

switterbug (Betsey) rated it:

Zoe Heller is sui generis, a gutsy, peerless writer with master control of her narrative. This is a family saga that takes no prisoners. Her sardonic style is crisp, erudite. Her characters are not caricatures--as outrageous as they are, they feel true.

Audrey Litvinoff, the matriarch, is a flinty, pained woman with a major character disorder. While her husband lies in a coma, she is told some uncomfortable news about his dirty little secrets. With a kind of acerbic, acid aplomb, she More...

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