Review: The Believers by Zoë Heller

Today in January Magazine’s fiction section, contributing editor Diane Leach reviews The Believers by Zoë Heller. Says Leach:

Heller’s fine novel takes on the Litvinoff family, a tribe of New Yorkers utterly certain in their beliefs until, abruptly, they aren’t.

Patriarch Joel is a famous radical lawyer known for defending controversial individuals, most recently an American Muslim suspected of Al Qaeda ties. Joel, an ardent socialist and judgmental moralist, glories in his outsider status, gleefully scanning the morning papers for disparaging publicity.

Joel’s English-born wife, Audrey, fled her humdrum life as a typist to marry this American hotshot. Shy, overwhelmed by America, she constructed a protective carapace, a sharp-tongued, fiercely leftist character that has hardened into a vicious woman.

The full review is here.