The Believers by Zoe Heller, is the tale of a family at a cross roads. When the Livinoff family’s patriarch suffers a stroke, the family starts to unravel quite quickly. The book examines and tests the character’s beliefs. However, the novel is more of an exercise in characterization.
Heller recently told The Book Page (March 09) that, “The job of fiction is not to present likable characters. It's to present interesting characters.” So before becoming the spokesperson for fiction, Heller gave us Audrey, the matriarch of her Litvinoff family. Audrey is horrid. She is awful to her children and hypo and hypercritical of everyone else. And due to the novel’s structure we are forced to feel her presence in every chapter. The rest of the characters are Audrey’s brood, so unsurprisingly, they are definitive brats.
I wish I had known Heller’s position on characterization prior to picking up the novel. I don’t disagree that characters don’t have to be likable, but as the author I feel Heller should have given us some reason to care about the fate of these characters. Heller fails to do so. Instead she presents characters who are grating, and so despite some comical moments, this story become increasingly tedious.
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I too don't disagree with her idea, but I think there has to be something: one character who you don't want to die in a car wreck, one character you at least pity because part of their annoying self is because of their bad childhood or something.
ReplyDeleteRonnica...I know right? In The Believer's a car wreck or two would have been a welcome change of pace.
ReplyDeleteHaha...well if you two want a car wreck to happen to kill off some characters, I won't be reading this one.
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