Book review: ‘Everything You Know’ by Zoe Heller

Everything You Know by Zoë Heller


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Zoe Heller made an auspicious debut with the bleakly comic tale of a self-hating English writer whose greatest success is a memoir about the scandalous death of his wife, of whose murder he is widely suspected. Parallel to the chronicle of his unraveling career and life is the sad saga of his younger daughter, revealed in journals she left behind when she committed suicide.

Heller is unstinting at depicting pathos and squalor; she balances her two narratives adroitly and succeeds at the delicate art of making her antihero sympathetic without ever compromising on how unattractive and frequently reprehensible he is. She makes complex, nuanced points about morality and redemption, compellingly and entertainingly.





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