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The Believers | 
| Author: Zoë Heller
Publisher: Fig Tree
Category: Book
List Price: £16.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 217
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0670916129
EAN: 9780670916122
ASIN: 0670916129
Publication Date: September 25, 2008
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Impossible to care... November 7, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I loved Zoe Heller's last books but this one is packed with the most unsympathetic bunch of characters I've ever come across in one book. I didn't care about any of them, and the matriarch who dominates the book is so relentlessly unpleasant that I was absolutely indifferent to her fate. Her appalling selfish cruelty towards all her children was implausible and unquestioned by any of her family or friends. Her children were all equally unattractive and, despite their grim family background, I felt no sympathy for their fates.
None of them seemed to learn anything about themselves and none of them seemed truly affected by the death of their father. There were no moving or telling encounters between mother and children, just a lot of vicious unprovoked ranting.
A big disappointment.
 The Believers November 4, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Zoe Heller's third novel, The Believers, is a delicious satire on modern social mores. Her previous two novels, the sorely unrecognised farce Everything You Know and the thrillingly malicious Notes on a Scandal - which was made into a film - as well as Heller's many entertaining newspaper and magazine columns, have all demonstrated her abilities as a sharp, witty observer of ugly human behaviour. The Believers is rich with more of Heller's wickedly acute apercus.
Set in 2002, the story follows events in the lives of the self consciously liberal Audrey and Joel Litvinoff and their children one tumultuous year.
Heller's novel is littered with despicable characters that she paints deftly with simple but devastating brush strokes, yet they never slip into self parody; they are utterly believable. The reader alternately snickers and shudders, sniggers and goosebumps at them. But we've all probably met people like this, posturing, mildy hypocritical wealthy activists, joyless pursuers of union rights whose concern for the workers doesn't translate into kindness on an individual level, people who are intolerant of all but their own foibles.
There are also sympathetic characters here, real, complex personalities with faults and strengths, and their human weaknesses and flashes of humanity shine through.
Heller is as mordantly funny and beadily insightful an observer of society as Oscar Wilde was in his day. With a simple phrase she can wreak devastation on a character, whether it's an observation of a cliched turn of phrase used to death by a lumpen person or a hilariously evil description of a self important character's demeanor during sex. It is the highest art form to use language so succinctly, to make gaspingly perceptive observations so languorously, with so little ostensible effort. In this, Heller is in the same league as William Boyd - her prose is a joy to read. She out-bitches other vindictive female writers like Julie Burchill but does so without Burchill's contradictions and off-putting self love; she is a master of the understated put-down.
The Believers is a wry, riotously funny novel. Why it didn't make the 2008 Booker long or shortlist is a mystery - perhaps a snobbish perception of absence of gravitas, of a failure to deal with larger themes than human faults, family and relationships. But this is a myopic view: The Believers tackles in its way the contradictions inherent in many great themes - organized religion, social good, the value of a political conscience and its contribution to making a person objectively 'good'. Read it.
*****
absorbing November 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is totally absorbing. But I do agree with an earlier reviewer who commented that the end felt like it was wrapped up too quickly. It was unsatisfying and felt slightly incomplete and hurried. I felt that the previously discussed flawed nature of the characters added interest, and was absorbed by the details of how they, in particular Audrey, developed. In fact I found this more interesting than many novels with protagonists who it may be easier to like at all times... Additionally, the novel has a real sense of time and place and this allows one to be absorbed deeply into the novel. The time and place in this case is post 9-11 Manhattan, in itself hugely diverse and gripping. Although Audrey (the matriarch) is English, she has been totally shaped by her husband and their life in New York. She is not easy to like, but fascinating to read about. Her daughters are much more sympathetic, but also flawed and interesting.
The title "The Believers" takes on a layer of meaning in the setting of post 9-11 Manhattan. How belief not only shapes the individuals in the novel, but also their perceptions of themselves, others and the world as a whole is a central theme. What happens when the things they believe in are destroyed or twisted is the main force for the development of character in the novel. It is unsentimental, but very moving nonetheless. It deals with deeply emotional issues, but remains on an intellectual level, as do the characters for the most part. Confronting emotion is an issue for this family.
The core theme is how belief is central to human existence and in particular to this family. Overall, it was intelligent, absorbing, interesting and very original, quite different to anything else I have read. The writing was readable with a good pace, but also exquisite and thought provoking. Recommended!
the believers October 24, 2008
The Believers
read it read it read it, zoe heller is such a good writer, she can make you feel like you are related to these women in her book!
Five Years In The Waiting! October 21, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
It's been five years since Zoe Heller wrote Notes On A Scandal, and after reading The Believers I do believe it was well worth the wait. Heller is a genius at creating obnoxious characters, who are hateful and totally unlikeable yet spinning an unputdownable story at the same time.
The Believers opens when Audrey and Joel first meet in London and then moves quickly to New York in 2002, they have now been married for 40 years and the story really starts from there.
Joel is a very succesful, out-spoken New York lawyer and Audrey has been his dutiful and very outspoken wife for all these years. When Joel is taken very ill and the family discover his secret, they all start to examine how they feel about themselves and each other.
The whole family are very brittle and extremely disfunctional - with no likeable or warm characters amongst them, yet you still need to know what they will do next. Audrey, the mother is a particularly nasty piece of work and her outbursts of bad language and un PC comments are kind of delightful in her own way! The whole family hate each other and hate themselves and each one them questions their beliefs and views throughout the book.
This is totally absorbing and very compelling, but, I do feel that it may become a 'Marmite' book - you will either love it or hate it.
I loved it - I hope it's not another five years before her next book
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