The book opens with a prologue set in mid-sixties London, where Joel Litvinoff, an American civil rights lawyer, meets a young Englishwoman, Audrey. After a brief and apparently casual affair, she decides to go to the United States and marry him.
 
The main narrative then commences in New York in 2002. Joel is 72 and approaching the end of a long and illustrious career as an activist lawyer. He and Audrey live in Greenwich Village and have three adult children: two daughters, Rosa and Karla, and an adopted son, Lenny. Audrey is now an acid-tongued, domineering woman in late middle age who fiercely defends, but never questions, the political stance that has shaped her life. Her most tender feelings appear to be directed towards Lenny, a frequent drug user who is incapable of personal responsibility.
 
Karla, the neglected and under-appreciated oldest child, is a social worker who is married, not very happily, to Mike. They have been trying unsuccessfully to start a family. Rosa works with disadvantaged young girls. She is becoming increasingly interested in Judaism, a faith rejected along with all others by her Jewish parents. For this she is much derided by Audrey.
 
Joel suffers a stroke while in court and is in a coma for most of the time span covered by the book. Audrey is convinced he is not getting proper care in the hospital and creates difficulties for its medical staff. During this time of stress, Karla’s unhappiness with her marriage rises to the surface. She begins an affair with Khaled, originally from Egypt, who runs a newspaper store at the hospital where they both work. Rosa immerses herself in the study of Orthodox Judaism and, though she finds many of its teachings difficult to accept, though she perseveres. A stranger, Berenice Mason, introduces herself to Audrey, claiming that her son is Joel’s illegitimate child. Though Audrey initially dismisses her with contempt, it emerges that her story is true and that Berenice has been receiving regular financial support from Joel.
 
Lenny is persuaded by Audrey’s friend Jean to go to her country home in Pennsylvania for a month in order to get off drugs. He makes great progress there and, when Audrey visits, he proposes settling in Pennsylvania permanently. Appalled by the prospect of losing him, Audrey does her best to discourage the idea. Rosa abandons, and then takes up again, her studies in Orthodox Judaism deciding finally that she must pursue her religious intuitions.

Joel dies without regaining consciousness. At his funeral, which is attended by thousands, Audrey gives a eulogy in which she celebrates her 40-year marriage to her husband and makes a public acknowledgment of Berenice and her son. At the reception afterwards, Karla makes a last-minute, momentous decision regarding her own marriage.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

“The Believers is funny, serious, well plotted and well written, sympathetic without being sentimental, thought-provoking and enjoyable; in short, that rare specimen every reader hopes for when opening a new book.”
— The Globe and Mail

“An intelligent, darkly comic and richly entertaining read.”
— Edmonton Journal

“In her portrait of an obsessive and manipulative school teacher [in Notes on a Scandal] . . . Heller displayed her undeniable gift for creating human beings who behave dreadfully. She’s at it again with The Believers.”
— Calgary Herald

“Heller’s skewering of left-wing hypocrisy is so devilishly hilarious.”
— Toronto Star

“Heller has a way with characters. . . . Her fine prose appears effortless.”
— The Boston Globe

“An astonishingly well-observed, slow burner, it’s virtuoso prose compressed and beautiful.”
— The Guardian

“Relevant, expansive, and subtle. . . . A writer of consistently high-class, understated and shattering fiction.”
— Lionel Shriver, the Daily Telegraph

“Heller’s writing in The Believers is never less than stunning: Her eye for detail and ear for dialogue are masterful, if unsettling.”
— National Post

“Heller is at her best here.”
— The Gazette

“Marriage, politics, religion - ha! . . . The Believers is easily Heller’s most ambitious and satisfying book.”
— Globe and Mail (interview)

“Brilliant. . . . This novel’s blackly comic accounts . . . remind the reader of Ms. Heller’s ability, first glimpsed in [Notes on a Scandal].”
— The New York Times

“Funny, sharp, caustic, deft and ruthless.”
— The Mail on Sunday

“This is a novel rich in humour and packed with sparkling dialogue. Above all, it’s a funny and brilliant analysis of what makes families tick.”
— Sunday Express

“A brilliant, brilliant book.”
— Daily Mail

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

"I really liked the book. The characters were very believable…. A disfunctional but realistic family."
— Eleanore A, British Columbia

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

Zoë Heller was born in London in 1965 and educated at Oxford University and Columbia University, New York.  After writing book reviews for several newspapers she became a feature writer for the Independent and a columnist for the Sunday Times. She now writes for the Daily Telegraph, having been awarded the title “Columnist of the Year” for 2002.  She has also been a contributor to several magazines.

As a novelist, before writing The Believers, she published Everything You Know (2000) and Notes on a Scandal (2003), which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for fiction and was made into a feature film starring Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench.

 Zoë Heller lives in New York.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page