About this title: The highly anticipated new novel from the author of the acclaimed "What Was She Thinking?" is a rich, comic chronicle of one family's struggles with the consolations of faith and the trials of doubt.
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Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Fig Tree
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780670916122ISBN:0670916129
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780141024677ISBN:0141024674
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780141024677ISBN:0141024674
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061430206ISBN:006143020X
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. Excellent Condition. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 335 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: book Hardcover
Publisher: Harpercollins
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061430206ISBN:006143020X
Description: Brand New. Brand new. Never read or owned. May have a remainder mark. 335 pages. 9.30 x 6.50 x 1.20 in. 17.6 oz. When a radical lawyer's stroke reveals cracks in his forty-year-marriage to his wife, their three children struggle with their own life challenges; from Rosa, who is pressured to commit to orthodox Judaism; to Karla, who is tempted away from an unhappy marriage; to Lenny, who battles drug addiction. Zoë Heller (NOTES ON A SCANDAL) is a devious genius at exposing the flaws, vanity, ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780141024677ISBN:0141024674
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 320 pages. When audrey makes a devastating discovery about her husband, new york radical lawyer joel litvinoff, she is forced to re-examine everything she thought she knew about their forty-year marriage. joel's children will have to deal with this unsettling secret themselves, but meanwhile, they are trying to cope with their own dilemmas. (Paperback) read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harpercollins
Date Published: 2009-03-01
ISBN-13:9780061430206ISBN:006143020X
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780061430206. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061430206ISBN:006143020X
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780676978056ISBN:0676978053
Description: Very Good. Paperback, Very Good, clean, tight, unmarked, some light cover edge wear, Advance Reader's Edition All orders are shipped by kbooks every business day. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780670916122ISBN:0670916129
Description: BRAND NEW HARDBACK. 320 pages. A novel about one family's struggles with the consolations of faith and the trials of doubt in which in the course of battling their own demons and each other, every member of the family is called upon to decide what-if anything-they still believe in. (Hardback) read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover with dust jacket
Publisher: Harper Collins, New York
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780061430206ISBN:006143020X
Description: VG+ in VG+ dust jacket. New book. Signed by author on title page. Excellent condition. read more
Description: Good. Minimal damage to cover and binding. Pages show light use. With pride from Motor City. All books guaranteed. Best Service, Best Prices. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780141024677ISBN:0141024674
Description: When Audrey makes a devastating discovery about her husband, New York radical lawyer Joel Litvinoff, she is forced to re-examine everything she thought she knew about their forty-year marriage. Joel's children will have to deal with this unsettling se... read more
"It is a tribute to Zoe Heller that I actually completed this novel. She writes well enough to demand your interest, even when the story is flat, and the characters are infuriating and nearly impossible to identify with. The Litinoff's, a liberal-limo type left wing family living it up and down in Manhattan, are a complete mess. The mother, Aubrey, a British transplant, has been a bitch since the sixties when it was considered shockingly fun - is now nearing sixty and simply just a bitch. Her husband, Joel, a famous crusading lefty lawyer, spends the entire novel in a coma. Ironically, he is the only character that actually seems to develop as the story goes along, as we learn about him from his wife and his awful, ridiculous offspring. One is fat and troubled, one is a former socialist turned - just maybe! - religious zealot, one is an adopted drug addict. None make any progress, really, as the novel briskly moves forward. Aubrey seems to come full circle and become a person only in the final pages of the book.
How did I give this book more than one star? I suppose it is not all bad as I describe above. There are some passages that flow serenely and shed light on the aging counter-culture Heller is attempting to describe. One senses the feeling of utter "whatever" in Aubrey and even her kids after so many years of "fighting the power" (Chuck D. makes a guest appearance!). Against the backdrop of the Bush rush to war in 2002, there is nary a whimper of protest against what is happening in the country. There is talk about unhappiness with the direction of the country, but really the characters have more personal/selfish things to worry about. For a novel that takes place in the 12 months following September 11th, in Manhattan, it is surreal and almost refreshing to read a novel that doesn't dwell on the event and barely mentions the political scene that rose up in reaction to the proto-patriotism and flag-waving jingoism. And this in a novel that is blatantly about a family that theoretically would not be able to stop itself from being involved in anti-Bush rhetoric.
But not only is the family patriarch in a coma, the whole movement seems to be in a coma. Not because of fear of being called anti-American by the MSM, but because just like many in the years after 9/11 as America dug its heels in and entrenched itself in a "with us or against us" mantra for most of the 2000s, its population had too many other things to worry about than to question the direction its nation was heading in. In the 60s they would have been protesting, but now the Litinoff's are mostly just tired and indifferent - and just not bothered by anything other than their own utterly boring stumbles and mishaps.
This is where the portrayal of the Believers is interesting - and insightful."
"Brilliant, mean, funny--but will I sound prissy if I complain that each and every American character speaks like a Brit? I don't get it. Where's the editor? Where's the kindly American friend who'll read a draft and say, "Zoe, I love this book, but Yanks don't say 'That's not been my impression,' we say, 'That wasn't my impression,' and we don't say 'Don't let's declare it a failure,' we say 'Let's not declare it a failure.'" It made me sad that this novel, which I loved so much, distracted me on every page with the equivalent of a neon sign blinking I WAS WRITTEN BY A BRITISH WOMAN WHO HASN'T FULLY MASTERED AMERICAN LOCUTIONS."
"Wow--I couldn't put it down--every character in this novel about a New York city family is so fully drawn and believable. The matriarch of the family, Audry, who is outlandish and entertaining, could have been cartoonish, but Zoe Heller deftly gives us insights into her behavior that make us accept her as a character. No one in the book is particularly loveable or noble, but that is what makes it so interesting, and fun. This book exposes people in all of their hyprocrisies and weaknesses, for better and worse, in a family that feels familiar, in every scene. Heller's prose is immaculate, and her conversational threads read like real life."
"A screwball, domestic family novel. Good writing, good characters but everyone was sort of screwed up. I actually would have liked this one more if it hadn't been written by Zoe Heller, as I was a huge fan of "Notes on a scandal" and felt this book just didn't measure up."
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