The Believers

The Believers is a 2008 novel by Zoë Heller. It depicts the family of a controversial lawyer in New York after a stroke renders him comatose. Each member of the Litvinoff family must confront the hypocrisies underlying their patriarch's political profile, and make difficult choices about their own values and ideological commitments. The motto of the book—"The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned"—is a quotation from Antonio Gramsci. It has been noted that The Believers, Heller's third novel, bears no resemblance to her previous book, the successful Notes on a Scandal (2003). Plot summary At a party in 1962, 18-year-old typist Audrey Howard meets Joel Litvinoff, an American lawyer involved with the civil rights movement. Although Joel is fourteen years older, Audrey is impressed when Joel puts her pompous date in his place. In turn, Joel is intrigued by Audrey's aloofness. Joel later finds Audrey's number in a telephone book and insists on accompanying Audrey to visit her dreary, rural parents the next day. Audrey and Joel spend the night together, and Joel half-seriously suggests that Audrey marry him and follow him to the United States. Bored with her unstimulating life in Britain, Audrey takes him up on his offer. Forty years later, Joel and Audrey live together in Greenwich Village. Joel is now famous, successful, and controversial for his radical legal activism. Audrey has become a fiery, antagonistic woman who finds fault in all things and defends her husband's causes with zealous conviction. Joel and Audrey have three adult children living elsewhere in New York City. Lenny, the eldest, was adopted at age seven as part of Joel's belief in collective, "tribal" child-rearing. Lenny's parents were eco-terrorists, with their last campaign killing his biological father and landing his biological mother in jail. Since then, Joel has grown frustrated with Lenny's addiction issues and repeated petty crimes, while Audrey dotes on Lenny and constantly excuses his delinquency. Karla, the middle child, is a hospital social worker. Karla struggles with low self-esteem after years of demeaning treatment from her family about her weight and intelligence. Karla is unhappily married to Mike, a union organizer, who desperately wants children. Rosa, the youngest, chaperones an after-school program for underprivileged girls.