I missed it completely yesterday, but Sara Nelson's last column for Publishers Weekly is especially sad in light of her dismissal.
"Call me gullible or impressionable, but I'm actually feeling kind of hopeful this week. It's not just the new year or the inauguration (which I loved most for its goofs and gaffes) or even that—please, please—publishing business firings are coming to an end, at least for a while.
Then again, maybe I am buoyed by the start of the Obama presidency: While I know change is going to be slow in coming, it's energizing to look at what we've already started, at what we can do now."
Oy.
The tag line above is from Antonio Gramsci, the Italian philosopher and it applies to most of life, the publishing industry in particular.
While it's nice to be mentioned in Sarah's blog I'd much rather have Sara Nelson back with PW.
The tag line above is from Antonio Gramsci, the Italian philosopher and it applies to most of life, the publishing industry in particular.
Another reason to love Nelson is that she's a fan of Zoe Heller. I just got the advance of the new novel and it's a beauty.
The Believers strikes me as inhabiting similar turf to Claire Messud's Emperor's Children, but I'll follow Zoe Heller anywhere.
Her previous novels are perfect reads, a joy to handsell and they occupy a spot that many modern novels seem to run away from. They tend to the here and now, their characters are somewhat difficult to like and the moral failings at the centre of Heller's characters are too finely drawn out and complex to easily dismiss as an entire and irreversible failing.
In short they run counter to too many of Canadian fictions earnest citizenry who have horrible childhood maladies and strive in their adult years to overcome long odds to zzzz....
Of course that's a gross exaggeration, but Zoe Heller writes novels that are just a delight to read, and too often readers both casual and serious pick up the middling stuff that's in the news or in the (shrinking) book review pages and end up dismayed at the wrong turn.
To quote from Nelson's PW piece:
"Zoe Heller’s books aren’t hard to read or pretentious or opaque, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy. What they are is deceptively complex, in the way they wrap a high-concept plot around extremely complicated characters."
Spot on, that.
Posted by David
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query heller. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query heller. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
make me a believer
Zoe Heller pictured here and heard here, has written a beauty of a book that I'm a bit late on.
I've tracked it a bit, but have delayed the proverbial two cents.
But the Believers is really my kind of stuff.
I'm a sucker for the political novel insofar as it can so readily illustrate how we live and choose to live.
Unless you have David Lodge's singular gift for storytelling, most of our hopes, fears, dreams and disappointments inevitably cleave to our politics whether we acknowledge it or not.
What we believe and how we live are the meat of the modern novel and British author Zoe Heller works those rooms very well indeed.
The relationship between Audrey and Joel appears based on a shared revolutionary zeal, even as they barrel into the second half of their lives, complete with three children and a status that comes with the perception in certain quarters of having hung onto their ideals rather than becoming acquisitive suburbanites.
Joel is a lefty lawyer in post 9/11 New York who while defending a "person of interest" has a stroke in the courtroom and spends rest of the book in a coma.
Audrey and Joel have three kids who serve as fodder for her scorn and exasperation at the outset, but each of them struggle under her glare, and fitfully come into their own.
Rosa a socialist who is searching for a new faith, Lenny, an adopted cross addict and worse, politically disconnected son,--and Karla, the dutiful daughter largely unhappy in both her married and professional life, round out the major players.
Anyone who has ever disappointed a parent or who can privately admit that their kids aren't up to par will find a monstrous guilty pleasure in devouring the exchanges between Karla and Audrey.
As Joel is offstage, it's Audrey who is the fulcrum on which this comic and affecting tale rests.
Her ball of resentments and disappointments, her refusal to see anything in a non-political construct, and her reaction to the grenade tossed into her life by a woman claiming to have a child by Joel years earlier drive the book.
Audrey is a fantastic creation, the kind of fully drawn character I'm sure most novelists have in mind when they start their book; but sweat blood to create.
Some reviewers have noted some similarities to Clare Messud's novel from a few years back, the Emperor's Children and that's a valid point.
I was more than ready to like the Believers on it's own merits, but such comparison only added to my impatience for Heller's book to arrive.
It's a bit more comedic and despite the mess these characters create, Heller keeps all of them in check and maintains a lightness throughout.
It's a balance that satisfies almost entirely.
Posted by David
I've tracked it a bit, but have delayed the proverbial two cents.
But the Believers is really my kind of stuff.
I'm a sucker for the political novel insofar as it can so readily illustrate how we live and choose to live.
Unless you have David Lodge's singular gift for storytelling, most of our hopes, fears, dreams and disappointments inevitably cleave to our politics whether we acknowledge it or not.
What we believe and how we live are the meat of the modern novel and British author Zoe Heller works those rooms very well indeed.
The relationship between Audrey and Joel appears based on a shared revolutionary zeal, even as they barrel into the second half of their lives, complete with three children and a status that comes with the perception in certain quarters of having hung onto their ideals rather than becoming acquisitive suburbanites.
Joel is a lefty lawyer in post 9/11 New York who while defending a "person of interest" has a stroke in the courtroom and spends rest of the book in a coma.
Audrey and Joel have three kids who serve as fodder for her scorn and exasperation at the outset, but each of them struggle under her glare, and fitfully come into their own.
Rosa a socialist who is searching for a new faith, Lenny, an adopted cross addict and worse, politically disconnected son,--and Karla, the dutiful daughter largely unhappy in both her married and professional life, round out the major players.
Anyone who has ever disappointed a parent or who can privately admit that their kids aren't up to par will find a monstrous guilty pleasure in devouring the exchanges between Karla and Audrey.
As Joel is offstage, it's Audrey who is the fulcrum on which this comic and affecting tale rests.
Her ball of resentments and disappointments, her refusal to see anything in a non-political construct, and her reaction to the grenade tossed into her life by a woman claiming to have a child by Joel years earlier drive the book.
Audrey is a fantastic creation, the kind of fully drawn character I'm sure most novelists have in mind when they start their book; but sweat blood to create.
Some reviewers have noted some similarities to Clare Messud's novel from a few years back, the Emperor's Children and that's a valid point.
I was more than ready to like the Believers on it's own merits, but such comparison only added to my impatience for Heller's book to arrive.
It's a bit more comedic and despite the mess these characters create, Heller keeps all of them in check and maintains a lightness throughout.
It's a balance that satisfies almost entirely.
Posted by David
Thursday, January 25, 2007
who doesn't love Zoe Heller
Certainly not the Guardian.
Good on her, Notes on a Scandal was a beauty.
Check the end of the article (other books into film) for a nice bit on Jonathan Coe's Rotters Club.
I don't need to see the TV adaptation I suppose, but I'm glad it was filmed.
Hell of a book and a damn fine sequel as well.
Posted by Dave
Good on her, Notes on a Scandal was a beauty.
Check the end of the article (other books into film) for a nice bit on Jonathan Coe's Rotters Club.
I don't need to see the TV adaptation I suppose, but I'm glad it was filmed.
Hell of a book and a damn fine sequel as well.
Posted by Dave
Saturday, December 13, 2008
The new year begins
well sort of.
It's only a scant few days until '09, so any proper bookseller is cheating a bit.
Random House is going long on this, with an initial print of 150 000 copies. That's a lot for a literary first novel when the economy is shaky, but then it's not like Random House has to pay a lot of salary anymore.
Not for nothing, but watch for the new Zoe Heller novel in March. The reviews in Britain have been very good and she's always been a favourite.
Perhaps a few missives over the next ten days, but just as likely not.
Until then a Merry Christmas to all, or at least a drink of choice at your side to get you through the stress test that is the modern holiday.
Posted by David
It's only a scant few days until '09, so any proper bookseller is cheating a bit.
Random House is going long on this, with an initial print of 150 000 copies. That's a lot for a literary first novel when the economy is shaky, but then it's not like Random House has to pay a lot of salary anymore.
Not for nothing, but watch for the new Zoe Heller novel in March. The reviews in Britain have been very good and she's always been a favourite.
Perhaps a few missives over the next ten days, but just as likely not.
Until then a Merry Christmas to all, or at least a drink of choice at your side to get you through the stress test that is the modern holiday.
Posted by David
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