Heft

By: Liz Moore

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Keith Szarabajka

Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Literary Fiction, 2013

A heartwarming novel about larger-than-life characters and second chances....

Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn’t left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career - if he can untangle himself from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel’s mother, Charlene, a former student of Arthur’s. After nearly two decades of silence, it is Charlene’s unexpected phone call to Arthur - a plea for help - that jostles them into action. Through Arthur and Kel’s own quirky and lovable voices, Heft tells the winning story of two improbable heroes whose sudden connection transforms both their lives. Like Elizabeth McCracken’s The Giant’s House, Heft is a novel about love and family found in the most unexpected places.

©2012 Liz Moore (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“A suspenseful, restorative novel from one of our fine young voices.” (Colum McCann, National Book Award–winning author)

“In Heft, Liz Moore creates a cast of vulnerable, lonely misfits that will break your heart and then make it soar. What a terrific novel!” (Ann Hood, best-selling author of The Red Thread)

“This is the real deal, Liz Moore is the real deal - she’s written a novel that will stick with you long after you’ve finished it.” (Russell Banks, Pulitzer Prize finalist)

a fun two-story novel

This novel is really two interconnected stories. The first is about a 450 pound recluse, looking at his lonely life at present and looking back in his past - his time as a boy being made fun of, as an adult with his career as a teacher, and a crush he had on a young college student of his. The other half of this book follows the teenage son of the recipient of that crush. He is a star baseball player, trying to fit in at a private school where he feels like an outsider and he has to deal with his sick mother. I liked both stories quite a bit. I enjoy coming-of-age stories, and this was a good and original one. Each first person's narration has its own reader, and the older man's reader is especially good. This novel kept me engaged from start to end.

Anti-climatic

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

No

Would you be willing to try another book from Liz Moore? Why or why not?

Yes

Have you listened to any of Kirby Heyborne and Keith Szarabajka ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed it, but it took most of the book to get to what I thought would be the main story and left me hanging.

Very enjoyable!!

Story is so engaging. Narration is superb! I would highly recommend this book.

Lightweight Character Study

Heft gets off to a promising start. Arthur Opp, an obese shut-in, begins to explain to us how he got so lonely that his only remaining relationship is with binge eating. That was me about 30 years ago, watching my waist line grow proportionally to my heartbreak after the bad end to an important relationship. So I was very interested in seeing how author Liz Moore would develop Arthur's character relative to my own experience.

Unfortunately, Arthur's narration is soon supplanted by that of a Westchester County high school boy, and Heft turns into a YA novel about dealing with an alcoholic mother, snobby schoolmates, and being an accomplished and popular multi-sport athlete. (Sound of loud record scratch!) Wait -- "dealing" with being a popular high school athlete? Yes. OK, Kel's single mother is a major problem, but everyone else around him loves him and supports him through that struggle, even when he acts out. What's the story here?

The narrative eventually shifts back to Arthur as he takes baby steps to address his situation, thanks in large part to the arrival of a perky pregnant teenage housekeeper, as well as a letter from his past. But his segments grow shorter as Kel's drone on and on. This is major missed opportunity number one, abandoning Arthur. Number two, there is the opportunity for a significant study of fatherhood that is never explored to the same depth as, say, what Arthur is eating or why Kel wants to pursue baseball instead of college.

Which leads to major missed opportunity number three. Moore does give us a couple of detailed listings of Arthur's binge meals, but she never really develops a compelling metaphor. Sure, he eats because he's lonely, but this is literature, please take it a little past the obvious. Or, being a former English teacher who has an enduring crush on one of his students, maybe expand on the brief mentions of literary works that the student got so wrong and how that affected Arthur's affection for her.

Which brings me to this: Writing reviews for Audible, I feel bad about having to recommend not listening to a book. I know, I have to just be honest, but still... So I will close this review by heartily recommending The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, which is also about a lonely man who has given up on life and love only to find it through an unlikely turn of events -- events similar to those in Heft. More than anything else, Zevin sticks with her protagonist, as Moore should have done with Arthur Opp, and makes the most of her central metaphor, the love of books.

I have to add a note about the narration. Both narrators (one doing Arthur, one doing Kel) are perfectly fine. But the book is written with frequent breaks, sometimes after one- or two-sentence paragraphs. There is a pause of a couple or three seconds at every break. This totally disrupts the flow of the narrative, annoyingly. There isn't even the need for these breaks, as the next paragraph often is a direct continuation of the preceding one. Bad choice, very bad choice, by both author and the director of the audio version.

The characters came alive!

Would you listen to Heft again? Why?

Liz Moore makes this story come alive with her vivid descriptions, she made me understand how Arthur Opp felt as my empathy for his life grew. What an engaging read!
I couldn't stop listening!

The narrator paused, sighed, and gave such a performance!! I thoroughly enjoyed every minute! My only regret was that there was an end to the story!

Great story, characters, but the ending?

What did you love best about Heft?

I loved the characters and especially Keith Szarabajka's narration.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I wish it wouldn't have ended so abruptly. I suppose it's a mark of a good story when it leaves you wanting to hear more, but the ending to this story felt abandoned.

Which scene was your favorite?

Any scene with Arthur and Yolanda.

Very compelling.

Where does Heft rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Rates among the top 10.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Heft?

I don't have one.

Which scene was your favorite?

Nothing stood out.

Who was the most memorable character of Heft and why?

I loved Arthur. What an interesting man.

Any additional comments?

The story lulls you into a comfortable place.

HEFT

Would you consider the audio edition of Heft to be better than the print version?

Yes, this an incredible story.

Have you listened to any of Kirby Heyborne and Keith Szarabajka ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I listen to all of K.H. -

Any additional comments?

I am still thinking of this book and Keiths voice telling it. I listened over a month ago.

If only there were 6 stars

Where does Heft rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I have listened to many audiobooks and this one ranks very highly.

What did you like best about this story?

You felt like you knew these people, you ached for them, you bit your lip hoping they would make the right choice and squirmed in your seat when they didn't. You spoke aloud in the car hoping to coach them and were surpised when they couldn't hear you. You hurt for them and hoped for them. They were unlikely to be such sympathetic characters and yet they were. When the story ended, you hoped that they knew that you were pulling for them and you knew that you would miss them.

What does Kirby Heyborne and Keith Szarabajka bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narrators were perfect for their characters. In giving this book a recommendation to a friend I had a hard time imagining whether the story would have been as powerful if I had read it rather than listened to it. They really brought the characters to life.

Any additional comments?

I have never given a review for a book before, but felt I had to for this book. It was too good to miss.

I want to know more

This book really gets into the psyche of people. Why do we do the things we do, or don't do the things we want to do?

The narrators of both characters were wonderful.

I really wanted to know how their first meeting went. I hope there's a second book that continues their story.