Heller
2010 Shortlist

The Believers

artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

A comic, tragic, supremely entertaining novel about one family’s struggles with the consolations of faith and the trials of doubt.

When New York radical lawyer, Joel Litvinoff falls gravely ill, his wife Audrey uncovers a secret that forces her to re-examine both her belief in him and her commitment to their forty-year marriage. Meanwhile, her ne’erdo-well adopted son, Lenny, is back on drugs again and her daughters, Karla and Rosa, are grappling with their own catastrophes and dilemmas. Rosa, a disillusioned revolutionary socialist, has found herself increasingly beguiled by the world of Orthodox Judaism; Karla, an unhappily married hospital social worker and union activist, falls into a tumultuous affair with a conservative shop-keeper: can she really love a man whose politics she reviles? And how to choose between a life of duty and principle and her own happiness?

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Zoë
Heller

Zoe Heller was born in London in 1965 and educated at Oxford University and Columbia University, New York.
She is a journalist who, after writing book reviews for various newspapers, became a feature writer for The Independent. She wrote a weekly confessional column for the Sunday Times for four years, but now writes for the Daily Telegraph and earned the title ‘Columnist of the Year’ in 2002.

She is the author of three novels: Everything You Know (2000), a dark comedy about misanthropic writer Willy Miller; Notes on a Scandal (2003) which tells the story of an affair between a high school teacher and her student through the eyes of the teacher’s supposed friend, Barbara Covett; and The Believers (2008), shortlisted for the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Notes on a Scandal was shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize for fiction, and released as a feature film, starring Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench.

Zoe Heller lives in New York. (From https://literature.britishcouncil.org)

Zoe Heller was born in London in 1965 and educated at Oxford University and Columbia University, New York.
She is a journalist who, after writing book reviews for various newspapers, became a feature writer for The Independent. She wrote a weekly confessional column for the Sunday Times for four years, but now writes for the Daily Telegraph and earned the title ‘Columnist of the Year’ in 2002.

She is the author of three novels: Everything You Know (2000), a dark comedy about misanthropic writer Willy Miller; Notes on a Scandal (2003) which tells the story of an affair between a high school teacher and her student through the eyes of the teacher’s supposed friend, Barbara Covett; and The Believers (2008), shortlisted for the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Notes on a Scandal was shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize for fiction, and released as a feature film, starring Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench.

Zoe Heller lives in New York. (From https://literature.britishcouncil.org)

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
30/04/2009
Country
United Kingdom
Original Language
English
Author
Publisher
Fig Tree

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