A comic, tragic, supremely entertaining novel about one family's struggles with the consolations of faith and the trials of doubt.
Set in Heller's adoptive US The Believers is a funny, highly original and adroit satire of New York's liberal elite. The title, a wicked irony in itself, belies the books central characters, the Litvinoff tribe - a family of hard line antitheists who have rejected their Jewish heritage and proudly live by socialist values. The father Joel is a charismatic civil rights lawyer, his wife Audrey a raging pot smoking ultra-leftist. Their façade is shattered when Joel suffers a massive stroke and suddenly the family is forced to confront the reality behind their rhetoric. Karla, the eldest daughter, is an unhappily married union activist falling for a politically naive shop keeper. The middle daughter Rosa, a disillusioned Marxist, is exploring Orthodox Judaism and the Litvinoff's adopted son Lenny mocks his family's altruistic veneer with his lazy, self centered attitude. Heller's blazing satire is reminisce of Franzen's The Corrections, but with the volume turned up loud.
