Author:Zoë Heller
Zoë Heller's darkly comic third novel, The Believers explores a family pushed to its limits.
When Audrey makes a devastating discovery about her husband, New York radial 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 tot cope with their own dilemmas.
Rosa, a disillusioned revolutionary, is grappling with a new found attachment to Orthodox Judaism. Karla, an unhappily married social worker, is falling in love with an unlikely suitor at the hospital where she works. 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. No other novel would readily stand in its stead . . . pulses with thematic and intellectual content . . . Heller's prose is clean, warm and smart' Lionel Shriver, Daily Telegraph
'Astonishingly well-observed and stunningly written, a subtle, funny family farce . . . in its thundering confidence, The Believers is the work of a writer at the top of her game' Guardian
Zoë Heller is the author of three novels, Everything You Know, Notes on a Scandal, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and The Believers. The 2006 film adaptation of Notes on a Scandal, starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, received four Oscar nominations. She lives in New York.
A joy. Celebrates the real world and revels in its mad glory
—— Sue Townsend , Sunday TimesI was irresistibly reminded of Alan Bennett - there is the same wry humour, wonderfully telling selection of detail or remark . . . a fine balance of humour and poignancy
—— The TimesThe salty prose of an original poetic voice
—— Melvyn Bragg , ObserverA thoughtful, witty combination of travel writing, autobiography and Alan Bennett-style diary
—— John-Paul Flintoff , Daily TelegraphLaugh-out-loud funny . . . has all the resonant precision of a poet's ear and eye
—— IndependentAn original and talented writer . . . highly entertaining and there are flashes of wit and moments of tenderness and brilliantly accurate observation
—— Vernon Scannell , Sunday TelegraphThe best book I have read in a long time on what he insists is the true North of England
—— Geoffrey Moorhouse , Daily TelegraphP.G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit
—— Christopher HitchensTo dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language
—— Ben SchottWodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny
—— Adele ParksI've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music
—— Simon CallowWodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some
—— Joseph ConnollyI constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language
—— Simon BrettQuite simply, the master of comic writing at work
—— Jane MooreTo pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment
—— John Julius NorwichCompulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!
—— Lindsey DavisThe Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon
—— Kathy LetteWitty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny
—— Arabella WeirThe funniest writer ever to put words to paper
—— Hugh LaurieThe greatest comic writer ever
—— Douglas AdamsP.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century
—— Sebastian FaulksSublime comic genius
—— Ben EltonYou don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour
—— Stephen Fry