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The Believers

By Zoe Heller

(19)

| Others | 9780141040646

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Book Description

When Audrey makes a devastating discovery about her husband, New York radical
lawyer Joel Litvinoff, she is forced to re-examine everything she thought she
...

Critics

The bitter legacy of a whirlwind romance

Zoe Heller's best-known book, Notes on a Scandal, was an exercise in the unreliable narrator, with all the information, including the information that undermined it, being given from a single point of view. Her new, fitfully brilliant novel The Belie ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

The Believers

At a party in London in 1962, Audrey Howard, a typist from Chertsey, meets Joel Litvinoff, a radical lawyer from New York, and within days they have decided to marry. Forty years later, in anxious post 9/11 New York, Joel, now a successful lawyer, li ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

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4 Reviews

I was surprised that this novel is very different in style to the last one, a trait I always admire in authors that are brave enough not to just reproduce a winning style in their writing. I think The Believers is just as good if not better than Notes on a Scandal and I do not hesitate to recommend ... (continue)

I was surprised that this novel is very different in style to the last one, a trait I always admire in authors that are brave enough not to just reproduce a winning style in their writing. I think The Believers is just as good if not better than Notes on a Scandal and I do not hesitate to recommend both of them.
The novel is set in 2002, over a period of about eight months, but to set the scene when the novel opens it is forty years previously and the protagonist Audrey Howard meets Joel Litvinoff, the man who will become her husband at a party. A whirlwind romance with Joel, fourteen years her senior leads her to follow him from London where they met to New York in order to become his wife. Fast forward forty years and Audrey and her three grown up children are forced to revaluate their lives when Joel a radical successful lawyer suffers a stroke. Over four decades their family life developed in line with Joel’s ambitions to fight social injustices and they appear to live a very liberal lifestyle. After his stroke though the enormous cracks in this lifestyle come to the surface as Audrey, her daughters Rosa and Karla and their adopted brother Lenny all have to face their own demons. As they struggled to decide what they each personally believed in I found that although I did not really like any of them, I still became involved in their relationships. For me it was a compelling read that was both funny and poignantly sad.
For a fuller review please visit http://lindyloumacbookreviews.blogspot.com/2011/08/beli…

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Lindyloumac said on Aug 25, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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 noti ... (continue)

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 are both awkward and stilted, until Audrey invites Joel to sleep with her. Joel than says that he should take her back to the States and marry her, and to his surprise she agrees. One is not sure whether they love each other at this stage. As noted later on in the book, Audrey admits she goes with him to escape her dull, ordinary life in London.
As the story commences we are taken forty years on and they are apparently 'happily' married with two children of their own and an adopted son. Audrey appears to be a very angry and aggressive person. We are told that this was a form of cover for her own shyness when she first arrived in New York, but this trait stayed for the rest of her years along with her colourful language and penchant for dope. The reader may wonder why her character is such, but she has had to put up with years of Joel's infidelities and the reports and comments about it in the papers. Audrey obviously has problems of her own, as she admits to her lack of maternal instincts in raising her own daughters. Towards the end of the book Rosa touches her mother's cheek to turn her face towards her to make her listen, a practise that Rosa has had to adopt with her mother from early childhood. Karla, the younger daughter has been discouraged by both parents from having high aspirations, leaving her with low self esteem and dietary issues. Why Audrey is maternally drawn to her loser, adopted son Lenny is a bit of a mystery. Is he filling a gap that Joel with all his infidelities cannot provide? Joel is obviously not drawn to Lenny and resents the energy Audrey expends on him in time and money. Lenny uses Audrey and slowly bleeds her for food, a bed and money, as she is soft with him.
The main story is that Joel is taken ill and his secret comes to light. For Audrey the fact that Joel's staff knew of this secret does not help Audrey's situation. Jean, Audrey's incredibly supportive friend is the most likeable and solid person in the story. She is such a stalwart to put up with Audrey's insults and general bad behaviour. Around all this we have Lenny's issues with drugs. Rosa has suddenly found her Jewish faith much to the derision of her parents and grandmother, and yet by Joel's dying bed Hannah (his Mother) is singing a Yiddish verse. Karla, is downtrodden by her overbearing husband Mike. A domineering, manipulative man who outwardly despises the Litvinoff's but demands to be at Joel's dying bedside and funeral service, to be seen (to his advantage) hanging on with this high profile socialist, humanitarian family. Karla meets Khaled who likes her for who she is and through him she comes to terms with her weight and other issues, realising that she has been trapped in an unhappy marriage.
Joel's family go on a journey of exploration and eventually come out the other side. There are surprises but the characters are all the stronger for their journey.

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Booketta said on Apr 1, 2011 | Add your feedback

Brilliant writing, realistic dialogues and plot. One more star because I enjoyed reading in English after a lifetime!

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Midori* said on Sep 28, 2009 | Add your feedback

Zoe Heller effortlessly creates depth and texture in all her books and her characters are always most engaging.The Believers is entertaining, provoking, moving...It takes courage and enormous writing skills to have a vile character as Audrey as the focus a novel. Without a doubt Heller is one of th ... (continue)

Zoe Heller effortlessly creates depth and texture in all her books and her characters are always most engaging.The Believers is entertaining, provoking, moving...It takes courage and enormous writing skills to have a vile character as Audrey as the focus a novel. Without a doubt Heller is one of the most talented writers around and I'm looking forward to her next master piece.

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nuriape said on Jul 9, 2009 | Add your feedback