Liz Moore’s second novel is uncomfortable at times as its characters face their loneliness and what each has allowed it to do to his or her life. Reclusive Arthur Opp, a former English professor is morbidly obese and has not left his Brooklyn home in over ten years, has not visited with neighbors and has estranged himself from his family and colleagues. He has kept up a correspondence with his former student, Charlene Turner for much of the last twenty years, but when her latest letter comes in the form of a photo of a teenage boy and the possibility of a visit from Charlene, Arthur decides he cannot allow Charlene to see what has happened to his life and takes the first step of rejoining society by calling a cleaning service. The maid who arrives is a young woman, Yolanda, reminiscent, though Arthur may not realize it at first, of Charlene. What Arthur does realize is that maybe Yolanda may need him as much as he needs her and the two form a tentative friendship drawing from each other what each needs. The plot alternates between Arthur’s story and that of young Kel, Charlene’s son, whose world, not that great to begin with, is about to implode upon itself and come crashing down. Still a boy at eighteen, but trying to be a man, Kel must navigate situations both of his making and of not, as he tries to find a place for himself in this world, and indeed, who he really is.
Told with compassion and believable voices, Heft could easily become a novel of clichés, but somehow it manages not to. For the most part, the narrative told by two characters mostly works, though Arthur’s voice is stronger in the beginning, Kel’s toward the end. We feel more empathy toward Kel and sympathy toward Arthur as each deconstructs his own world and reconstructs it, creating a new family were one previously did not exist.
No comments:
Post a Comment