The Believers: A Novel [Paperback]

“[Zoe Heller] is an extraordinarily entertaining writer, and this novel showcases her copious gifts, including a scathing, Waugh-like wit.”—New York Times

Best-selling author Zoe Heller has followed up the critical and commercial success ofWhat Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandalwith another tour-de-force on the meaning of faith, belief, and trust:The Believers. Tragic and comic, witty and intense,The Believersis the story of a dysfunctional family forced by tragedy to confront their own personal demons. In the vein of Claire Messud and Zadie Smith, Zoe Heller has written that rare novel that tackles the big ideas without sacrificing page-turning readability.

When a stroke fells radical New York lawyer Joel Litvinoff, a secret is revealed that forces Audrey, his wife, to reexamine everything she believed about their forty-year marriage. In the meantime Joel's children are struggling with their own dilemmas and doubts. Disillusioned revolutionary Rosa has been drawn into the world of Orthodox Judaism. Karla, a devoted—and married—social worker hoping to adopt a child, is falling in love with the owner of a newspaper stand. Lenny, the ne'er-do-well, faces yet another relapse into heroin addiction. In the course of battling their own demons—and one another—the Litvinoffs must reexamine long-held articles of faith and decide what—if anything—they still believe in.

A moving, deeply intelligent look at intellectual loyalties-to ideology, religion, family-and the humans attached to them. This is a wonderful novel.A beautiful, oftentimes hilarious, razor-precise portrait of a family, a city, and an examination of the eternal and universal urge to embrace something, anything, greater than ourselves.Tough, wise and funny. . . . A sustaining, intelligent novel about how the big questions affect and change all our small lives.Profoundly satisfying. . . . Heller inlã4