The FiFi Report 229

The Believers by Zoe Heller
‘Zoe Heller is the author of two previous novels, Everything You Know and Notes on a Scandal, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003. This new novel is a comic, tragic, supremely entertaining novel about one family’s struggles with the consolations of faith and the trials of doubt. 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 knew about their forty-year marriage. Joel’s children will soon have to come to terms with this unsettling secret themselves, but for the meantime, they are trying to cope with their own dilemmas. Rosa is a a disillusioned revolutionary, and Karla is an unhappily married social worker. Adopted brother Lenny is back on drugs again. In the course of battling their own demons and each other, every member of the family is called upon to decide what - if anything - they still believe in.”Profoundly satisfying.  Zoë Heller injects just that difficult-to-pinpoint something-or-other that elevates soap opera to art. The text is infused with intelligence; the story is firmly set within a larger social fabric whose texture feels authentic….beautifully realised characters and an engaging storyline. …Pitch perfect.” Lionel Shriver.
£10 Amazon.com Publisher: Fig Tree (25 Sep 2008)