&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:Heller%27sBelievers.jpg) The cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Zoë Heller |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | gray318 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Fig Tree, an imprint of Penguin Books |
Publication date | September 2008 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 306 pp. |
| ISBN | 978-0-670-91612-2 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-670-91613-9 (trade paperback) |
| OCLC | 230916788 |
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).[1]
- ^ See Sam Peczek: "Social Graces Gone Askew", www.culturewars.org.uk (16 October 2008): "Ah, the age-old quandary of how to follow one's last novel—when that one was so popular that it was swiftly translated into 23 or so languages and adapted into a film. Heller employs two tactics here: the first is to wait a really long time (five years), perhaps in hope of creating some distance and such. And the second tactic: whatever made your last book famous, don't do it with the new one."