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Aug
13
Book Club Breakdown: The Believers by Zoe Heller
2009 at 10am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
This is the first in a new monthly series in which I’ll discuss my book club’s most recent selection and give some highlights of our discussion.
Published March 2009 by HarperCollins
What it’s about:
Description from the publisher:
When radical New York lawyer Joel Litvinoff is felled by a stroke, his wife, Audrey, uncovers a secret that forces her to reexamine everything she thought she knew about their forty-year marriage. Joel’s children will soon have to come to terms with this discovery themselves, but for the meantime, they are struggling with their own dilemmas and doubts.
Rosa, a disillusioned revolutionary, has found herself drawn into the world of Orthodox Judaism and is now being pressed to make a commitment to that religion. Karla, a devoted social worker hoping to adopt a child with her husband, is falling in love with the owner of a newspaper stand outside her office. Ne’er-do-well Lenny is living at home, approaching another relapse into heroin addiction.
In the course of battling their own demons—and one another—the Litvinoff clan is called upon to examine long-held articles of faith that have formed the basis of their lives together and their identities as individuals. In the end, all the family members will have to answer their own questions and decide what—if anything—they still believe in.
Why we chose it:
I won The Believers from a giveaway at Book Club Girl a few months back and had been trying to fit it into my reading schedule. I took a stack of ARCs and new books off of my TBR pile to our last meeting, and the group voted to select this one. The blurb sounded interesting, and we were all vaguely familiar with Heller because of Notes on a Scandal (which I have neither read nor seen), and we all tend to prefer more serious books with deeper issues to prompt discussion.
Faith, family, and identity figure large in The Believers, and we figured it would give us plenty to talk about.
What we liked:
Despite the rather heavy subject matter, The Believers moves along at a good clip and is actually a fast read. Heller’s descriptions of her characters cut to the quick and are so honest and unsparing that they occasionally border on cruel, and we found that unflinching look at the less than savory aspects of humanity refreshing and surprisingly fun to read.
Though we agreed that the characters in The Believers are almost universally unlikeable—the only two we felt any affection for existed only on the periphery of the story—we enjoyed the way Heller explores their weaknesses and failings and forces them (and us) to see the bright lines between the way they perceive themselves, the way they want others to perceive them, and the way they actually come across. When you can dislike all of the characters and still like a book, that really says something.
We also enjoyed Heller’s satire and social commentary when it worked. Unfortunately, we didn’t feel like it worked enough.
What we didn’t like:
When I was discussing The Believers on Twitter this weekend, @dogearedcopy said she felt Heller “overreached,” and I think that’s a good way to put it. Each of her characters is a study in contradictions and conflicts, but there’s just a little too much going on in the book. Rather than diving into a few characters, she tries to explore something about each one of them, and we’re talking about big issues here, people. We could all see where Heller was going, but we didn’t think she quite got there.
For me, Rosa, the sister who after years of being an agnostic socialist finds herself feeling pulled into Orthodox Judaism, was the heart of the novel. The conflict she feels between her liberal feminist beliefs and her desire to explore and participate in conservative Orthodox practices was very compelling, and I wanted to see more of it. Other members of the group wanted to see more of Karla, who is chronically overweight and undersatisfied, and to see her have a shot at happiness, even if it meant she had to cheat on her husband.
Ultimately, we decided we would have liked the novel better if it had focused on the two sisters, Rosa and Karla, and presented their parents as supporting characters who shaped them and defined their conflicts but who didn’t loom so large in the story.
This last thing is nitpicky, but I noticed that throughout the text, Heller had American characters using British turns of phrase, and it irked me. It made things ring slightly false, you know?
Should your book club read it?
This one’s a tough call. While none of us loved the book, only one of us hated it, and we found plenty to talk about. I think that’s one of the great paradoxes of book clubs (and reading in general): sometimes the books you don’t completely love give rise to the best discussions. For that reason, The Believers is a decent selection.
As we talked about the core issues of the book and the things we did and didn’t like, we made many comparisons to other books that explore similar issues or have similar aims, and that allowed us to share many recommendations and get to know each other better in terms of our reading styles and preferences. For a book club as new as mine is (that was only our third meeting), that kind of conversation is a very good thing.
I wouldn’t say The Believers is a must, but I think if you go into it ready to pull out the key themes and have a conversation that centers more on those ideas and how you relate to them rather than how the author presents them, you could have a very enjoyable meeting.
What else?
If you or your book club have read The Believers, I’d love to hear about your thoughts. And if you have any other questions about the book and whether it might be a suitable selection for your group, feel free to ask away!
You are so right – when everyone loves or hates a book, there’s not much to talk about, since you all agree.
Haven’t read it, but it does sound like an interesting book – especially as a discussion starter. I’m looking into starting a book club, but I’m having a hard time finding people who are dedicated and interested. How did you get into yours?
I started mine a few months ago with a friend who wanted to leave the one she used to be in. We each invited a few friends, and it’s going well so far. Good luck!
Even though I’m not in a book club I love reading about book club discussions. It’s always interesting to see what comes up in the discussion and how the group as a whole reacts.
I was a part of Barnes & Noble First Reads program and THE BELIEVERS was one of the titles they sent out last year. Below is my journal entry which I subsequently posted as a review on the B&N site. I had been really impressed with WHAT WAS SHE THINKING? [NOTES ON A SCANDAL] but equally disappointed with THE BELIEVERS. I also have my notes from the actual discussion, which parsed out the novel, but reading them over now, it looks more like a post-mortem!
In “Notes on a Scandal,” Zoe Heller created, with consummate skill, characters that were flawed, pathos-filled and unavoidably human. The characters may have not been particularly likeable, but they were recognizable. The expectation that Ms Heller would have evolved and demonstrated greater finesse in character portrayal in this novel would have been justified; but in “The Believers,” Ms Heller has over-reached herself. The Litvinoffs are a raft of characters that are flawed, derisively pathetic and, caricaturesque. By trebling her cast of main characters, the focus (foci?) is diffuse and the overall theme (belief as a crutch) fails to galvanize the novel.
Right-o. I’m proud to say that about 90% of what comes up in our discussions is book-related. And I’d like to keep it that way!
Thanks for coming by to share that! When I linked to your Twitter account, I wondered if you had a blog but couldn’t find anything. Glad you shared your journal entry. I completely agree that she overreached.
No, I’m not a blogger (It’s bizarre, I know!) I am both intrigued and enervated by the idea of creating and maintaining a blog. Right now I’m content with “visiting!”
I saw the movie Notes on a Scandal and loved it so from there I’ve been interested to read one of her books. I would’ve like to have been part of your book group for this one!!
I read The Believers back when it came out and reviewed it. I, oddly enough, quite liked the book, but for the life of me could not really pin down why. As unlikable as the characters were, there was still something I found very appealing about their story.
It was interesting, from the comments, and from what I read about it elsewhere, that people seemed quite divided about it and either loved or hated it.
Do it, Tanya! Take the plunge. The book blogging community is great.
Oh how I wish I had a book club. It sounds like so much fun. All the discussion, the opinions, the food! You’re so lucky!!!
We’ve learned that lesson in my book club as well. We’ve read several books that almost no one liked, but they gave us a lot to talk about which is a good piece of the reason we get together.
As far as overreaching, I felt the same way about Jennifer Haigh’s “The Condition” which everyone else seemed to love. I always find it hard to get into books where everyone is massively screwed up!
I feel lucky! And we’re having our next meeting at an ice cream parlor (in honor of Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen). Doesn’t get much better than that!
[...] Book Club Breakdown: The Believers by Zoe Heller [...]
[...] else slow to recommend selections, so I chose our first three—The Help, The Gargoyle, and The Believers—and the other ladies decided it was time to read something that wasn’t such a thinker. [...]
One aspect of the book that seems to be neglected is that of characters who live in the past. Their beliefs all seem to stem from a 60′s mindset in a post-9/11 world. One continually wants to tell them to let go of the past and live in the present. I don’t think any of them really achieves this.
I loved The Believers and found most of the characters true to life. Perhaps you had to have lived through the 60s and 70s and seen the way some people really did run amok in terms of their commitment to some form of socialism and the opportunities of ‘free love’ at the expense of their families to find them believable though. For me, the eternal conflict between being part of a family and part of the world at large was an important thing to explore.
As for American characters talking Britishisms – doesn’t seem inconceivable to me that having an English mother means expressions and habits of speech would rub off on her spouse, children and close friends. That may just be me though – I find they tend to rub off on me the more BritLit I read and the more British folks I follow on Twitter.
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