The question of which characters in a novel get most space is generally decided early on, often for reasons that are at first unclear. In Zoë Heller's new novel, The Believers, a large number of characters are briskly and satirically drawn, and most are given lines of dialogue that reveal something of the way they see themselves. Among them are four women (and a man who disappears early). For all of them life is shocking, and they're shocking to themselves. At the centre of the book, as in Heller's previous novel, Notes on a Scandal (2003), is a character who manhandles both the world and other people: Audrey Litvinoff in The Believers - abrasive, self-deceiving, mordant, furious.

LRB 6 November 2008 | PDF Download