Heft: A Novel

This is a beautifully written & thought provoking novel by Liz Moore. Close to the style of Anne Tyler with unique, quirky, & fascinating characters. Here is the story of Arthur Opp, an academic scholar who has become trapped by his obesity & loneliness in a hoarder's decorated home. The ten long years of eating and hiding his life away is suddenly disrupted when a letter from a former student arrives in the mail. I've read many books over my lifetime and these days its rare for me to find a book that I don't skim or skip through. I absorbed every single line of this book, often returning to parts of the story because I so enjoyed reading it. I did not find the end disappointing as one reviewer noted, I found the end heartwarming, hopeful, and honest. This is a wonderful story and a well written novel. I highly recommend it.

This amazing novel opens with a letter to someone written by obese Arthur Opp explaing why he hasn't left his house since September 11th, 2001, immediately setting up verisimilitude issues that I want answered. How could that be? But he covers most of the issues such as how he gets food--and lots of it. But no visit to a dentist? A doctor? After all, he is nearly 600 pounds and 58 years old. (That part never does get answered which would be the single flaw I see in the novel.) To a bnak although that is somewhat covered? Arthur was a college professor and lives in Brooklyn. And as I read, I thought about how he would have secured a stamp unless he affixed a bunch with a decade of history behind them. And then suddenly I meet Charlene Turner from 20 years or so earlier, his student in a nigh class. "She writes a whole paper on 'Medea' in which she stated, over and over again, in several different ways, that Medea was selfish and evil." Since I teach college students in basic composition, that struck me as both amusing and, alas, all too familiar in a country where education has plunged rapidly in the past couple of decades. This is my introduction to a novel written without using the word "and" but instead &, including beginning sentences with &. & now I think I will try doing that in some of my writing! Arthur narrates his story. And through Charlene we meet Kel, a high school senior and addicted to baseball and very good at it. I won't tell you any more than that. But Kel narrates his story which I also find believable even though he is a C student, but a C student by choice because his entire life is devoted to becoming a professional baseball player. And we are led to believe he is indeed good enough to do so. Arthur's back story unfolds as he prepares for the arrival of Charlene and Kel after twenty years without any communication from her. She lives in Yonkers but works at a high school called Pells Landing High School where the wealthy live. This, of course, is a fictional place although one does think Westchester County or even across the border to Greenwich, Connecticut maybe. And since Arthur is close to be immobile and his house--one he inherited from his mother, a brownstone--is a mess, then that is how Yolanda enters the pages. She works for a cleaning agency. And she becomes a very important character in the novel. This is a novel about addiction, but not a preachy one, not at all. Charlene is an alcoholic. Arthur is addicted to both food and as a result of his size to being alone with his TV. And, of course, a teenager wanting to become a major baseball player, the very best. I will avoid telling any more except that the narrator are believable.

Heft is the heartbreaking story of two lonely, damaged, people who fail to grasp their one chance of attaining happiness. It is also the story of an eighteen year old boy who must find his way through the morass of tragedy that lies in the wake of that unhappiness.

Arthur Opp's lonely existence has manifested itself in an eating disorder that has made him obscenely obese. Once a college professor, he has become a reclusive shut-in. The unbearable sadness of his life will tear at the strings of your heart. However, the reader will also experience repugnance at his weakness, his inability to fight for anything that might bring him redemption. He wallows in his own Shakespearean tragedy.

Charlene, is a lost soul who has spent her life dreaming of a world that she is ill equipped to live in. Her final dissent into a world of alcoholic escapism is tragic, but predictable. Somehow this ghost of a person has managed to raise a boy that personifies all of the possibilities that she herself never possessed.

Charlene's son Kell,a survivor, may yet achieve his dreams. Certainly, he has the strength of character, and the talent to reshape his destiny. But, can he escape his own demons?

Moore has created a beautifully written novel about these three disparate characters, and what becomes of them. Who will rise above the abyss that fate has delivered to them? The story is a reminder that though you cannot choose your family, you can choose your friends.

I have been trying to pinpoint what reading experience "Heft" called to mind and realize now that it is Carson McCullers' "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". This, too, is the story of damaged, lonely people longing for personal fulfillment and connections that are grounded in genuine and mutual regard. The characters' truths are revealed gradually, almost as if they have to learn that they can trust the reader, as well as each other. Although flawed, the book's protagonists are also so utterly redeemable that it is easy to accept some plot manipulations to produce hopeful outcomes. It has been a long time since I've read a novel that satisfied on so many levels: both narrators' voices ring true; the characters are rounded; the novel explores essential human issues; the writing seems effortless ( no small feat). This is a book that left me thinking -- and feeling.

I am not going to include a plot summary here, as other reviewers have already done so. This book was a sad and lovely portrait of loneliness and hope, and the voices of Arthur and Kel were perfection, each in their own way ~ never overblown, never overdone or melodramatic, which would have been all too easy to do. However, the ending of the book was so abrupt and so shocking, I had to keep clicking back to make sure I hadn't somehow missed a chapter.

As an author myself, I can understsand author Liz Moore's decision to end this story in the realm of possibility... these characters had all reached way beyond their respective comfort zones; therefore, ANYTHING could happen. It is left to each of us to imagine that encounter and the events thereafter. However, the book was so well-constructed and so deftly characterized that I grew very attached to these characters and wound up feeling extremely cheated and dissatisfied. I wouldn't have minded the ending being left open-ended in terms of the characters' future... but I wanted - no, NEEDED to be there for that dinner. But for that, this would have been a five-star novel.

That being said, as one reviewer mentioned, the ampersands bothered me a great deal, as did the repeated use of "O" as opposed to "Oh." I'm not sure if these were Kindle formatting issues or the writer's intent, but even were "O" to be an affectation of Arthur's, it didn't work here and only distracted from the character. The rest of the book was close to perfection for me, and I think it would make a splendid movie... ESPECIALLY if it included the dinner party.

I understand why many of the reviews are negative about the ending. It is a bit abrupt and I also hoped for a little more. However, later, I thought that maybe the ending is perfect. We don't learn what happened at the dinner, but the book left me very hopeful that the dinner would be a new beginning of happiness for all. Every character in Heft has a sad story and most of them have sad lives. The ending I imagine is one that gives each character hope for the future and an end to being lonely.

The writing is lovely and the characters touched my heart--especially Arthur, the hefty and lonely hero of this book. At least, that is how I think of him. Perhaps, others might think of Yolanda, who is introduced as Arthur's cleaning lady as the hero.

The only thing that bothered me a bit while reading this book is that there are abrupt changes from Arthur to the other central character, a high school boy.

If you read Liz Moore's LONG BRIGHT RIVER you might be surprised that this book is completely different. I know I was. Still, both books are beautifully written and enjoyable reads.

You know you're in the middle of a good book when you find yourself wondering about the characters when you're not reading it. I did this constantly with Heft. Just as you think of a friend or lover who has left you after a pleasant evening of the kind of togetherness that reminds you of why they are special, and that makes you feel blessed, this book lingers.

One could argue Heft is a story about loss, despair, and sadness. Undeniably, these are central aspects to the novel. However, I came away feeling a wonderful lightness -- ironic, when you look at the title. It's an extremely hopeful book, in the end, about all the ways we continue to live and to love, even in the face of gut-wrenching loss.

There's some lovely writing by Liz Moore, who has managed, at a tender age, to speak in the voices of not one but two flawed and believable characters. Here, Arthur Opp, over 500 pounds, and lonely in the Park Slope brownstone where he grew up and now lives by himself, at age 59, describes a very particular brand of empathy:

"Here is what I have always thought: that people, when they eat, are very dear. The eager lips, the flapping jaws, the trembling release of control -- the guilty glances at one's companions or at strangers. The focus, the great focus of eating. The pleasure in it."

Not only is the writing simple and sharp, but the thought is unique, and helps us know Arthur deeply.

The other narrator is an 18 year-old baseball player who is struggling with a loss that fills him with ambivalent emotions. He comes to a realization that frankly stunned me. He is 18 and the author who created him is not much older; together, they express an understanding that I came to only recently at a slightly more advanced age. (Let's just leave it at that.)

"I feel like people are only really dead once you stop learning about them. This is why it is important to me to keep learning about my mother, and what she wanted, and what her life meant, what she meant by the life she led. Then she will be alive, somehow, and her wish for me will have come true. My vow is to learn more about her. To see her as she saw herself."

I'm excited about Liz Moore. Hers is the kind of writing that endures, because it is straightforward and moves us, because its characters, and the lives they lead, the emotions they feel, go directly to our hearts, with a pinpoint accuracy that astonishes. To say I look forward to her next effort is putting it (pardon the pun) lightly.

Brief summary and review, no spoilers.

This story is told in alternating narratives. One of the narrators is Arthur Op, a morbidly obese 58 year old former professor. Arthur has turned to food for comfort, as his mother once did. He lives by himself in his childhood home and as we read further along we find out about his history and the reason for his alienation and sadness. One of the things we know about Arthur from early on is that he once loved a young woman named Charlene Turner, who had been once been a student of his at the college where he was a professor. They stopped seeing each other (which is explained later on) but since then they have been writing each other letters. Arthur has been lying to Charlene in his letters - making it sound like he has a normal life and a relationship with his family when no such thing exists. He is afraid to tell her the truth.

The other narrator is Kel Turner, a high school kid who's mother is usually drunk or sick. She had been diagnosed with lupus when she was younger, but Kel isn't sure if that's just an excuse for her isolating herself and turning to alcohol. She loves her son very much, and Kel loves her, but he suffers from knowing that his father left him and his mother when he was just a little boy. Kel fantasizes what life would have been like if he had stayed. Kel's mother really wants him to go to college and had arranged for him to go to a high school in a good area - but Kel feels out of place because most of the other kids there are wealthy and privileged, and he keeps his personal life a secret.

Both Arthur and Kel are alienated from those around them. But things change when Arthur gets a housekeeper and must be around another human being for the first time in ten years. And things change for Kel when his mother gets sick. We wonder, hoping as we read on, if somehow, in some way, this man and this boy can somehow become a part of each other's lives and release the loneliness and isolation they've felt for so long.

It is difficult to give a decent summary of this novel without giving away some key spoilers, so I'll leave it at that. I do want to say that this book was a page-turne for me from the moment I read the first sentence. The author has managed to articulate the voices of both a 58 year old man and a teenage boy, and both feel accurate and so real.

I really enjoyed this novel. It is a psychologically astute observation of these two people and of those around them. It is full of heart and hope. The only reason this wasn't 5 stars was to me was because of the storyline in the last part of the novel, but I don't want to discourage anyone from reading something as good as this.

Recommended.

I guess I am in a small minority here, but this book let me down. It was at times beautifully written, and the story had heart, but....

I purchased the book because of the rave reviews and the very promising sample, which introduces the reader to Arthur Opp - a unique, quirky but utterly believable and intriguing character. However, beyond the sample, the book quickly shifts to the point of view of Charlene's son, whose present-tense, 17-year-old voice did not ring true to me. I have spent time with plenty a teenaged boy; this one was too poetic, adultly perceptive, and, frankly, female, to be believed, especially for a non-academically oriented, athletic kid who experienced as hardscrabble an upbringing as his. As such, I did not find his story as intriguing or believable as Arthur's and much of the book focused on him. At certain points, I found myself grazing over his chapters, some of which went on at weary length about his baseball practice session, or difficult encounters with friends, so that I could get back to Arthur's story, as he ever-so-reluctantly began to emerge from the obesity-enshrouded chrysalis, thanks in part to another quirky but believable character, Yolanda. Don't get me wrong, I felt compassion toward the boy's plight anroutines or him despite not quite believing in him. But ultimately, I felt the focus on his story cheated me out of having more time to spend in Arthur's infinity more interesting company. As for Charlene - her character remained too much of a mystery, and her sad, selfish choice, the crux of the story, was never adequately explained. And finally, the ending left me hanging... I am the type of reader who needs just a little more resolve than this book offered.