The Believers

THERE has been a five-year wait since Zoe Heller’s second novel, Notes On a Scandal, but her third is now out in paperback.

Notes achieved most novelists’ wildest dreams, being short-listed for the Booker prize and turned into an Oscar-nominated film.

A hard act to follow, but Heller has chosen not to stick to familiar territory. Heller grew up in London, but her father was an American scriptwriter, and she has lived mainly in America since her mid-20s. She writes as sharply about America as she does about London. The Believers is a dark, but funny portrait of the family of a New York radical lawyer, Joel Litvinoff, set in New York in the edgy, post 9/11 year, 2002.

It is 40 years since he met Audrey, in London, and proposed marriage, on impulse, 24 hours later. Joel is a charismatic defender of victims of injustice, a hero of the radical left, with a house in Greenwich village, two grown daughters, Rosa and Karla, and a troubled adopted son, Lenny. Audrey has adapted to life in New York by assuming the persona of a truculent, misanthropic Brit, while remaining Joel’s most loyal supporter.

Joel collapses in court, and a second stroke sends him into a deep coma. The story focuses on the three women in Joel’s family, as they react to the crisis. Audrey’s faith in her husband is challenged when his ex-mistress, mother of his four-year old son, makes contact. Daughter Rosa struggles with an attraction to Orthodox Judaism. Her sister, the unassertive, overweight Karla, is faced with the choice of her marriage to a good but dull man, or running off with her lover.

Heller’s grasp of New York idiom is perfect, and the dialogue spot-on. She has biting observations on American life.

Heller’s biggest triumph is her portrayal of Audrey, a caustic termagant, but at heart still a compassionate radical.

The Believers is a serious novel, but it is also enormously enjoyable.