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)

Disappointing

The novel is nothing more than a slow, painful, sloth-like journey through two miserable lives... I kept hoping to care, to be drawn in, for the tide to change. It never changed. While I enjoyed aspects of the readers voice I felt it also added t to the overall glumness of the novel.

Was totally able to put myself in their shoes

Awesome book! The story and the readers were so real. Gave me true insight into the life of an obese person and someone who lives with an alcoholic. Hit very close to home and helped me to feel compassion.

Was sad when the book ended. Wanted to follow along their path.

Hefty praise from this listener

Arthur and Kell are two characters I want in my life. I am richer for having met them in this novel and want more of them. I want to listen to more of their lives unfolding.

The raw truth of who they are, so beautifully scripted by Liz Moore and so deeply felt in the voices of Kirby Heyborne and Keth Szarabajka bought tears to my eyes as this sad and melancholy tale of love, loneliness, tragedy and devotion made its way into my heart.

Arthur's weight is palpable from the beginning and his unabashed ownership of it, his love and hate and shame of it allowed me to know what it feels like to be covered with so many layers of excess weight.

Kell's love for his mother and the tragedy he endures because of it, is so moving, so honest, it brings my tears to the surface again.

Awesome performance by Keith Szarabajka

What did you like best about this story?

The book is written in a way that makes putting it down hard. Keith Szarabajka does such a great job in this book.

Emotional moving story. I loved it!

What did you love best about Heft?

Insight of life on two people, usually invisible to most people, lonely, unloved. How look can affect how much love is received.
I loved narrations!! One of the best.

What did you like best about this story?

Arthur's pain of being overweight, embarrassment is described so well.

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

I did have feeling I knew people myself. Amazing performance, like first class theater.

Heft is beautiful!

Pure and simple I LOVED this book! Heft is a story of 2 lives running in parallel and the 1 person that connects them. Both of the stories are interesting and heartaching in different ways. I felt so touched by the journey of both characters, their struggle with isolation and aloneness but manifesting in different ways. I was so wrapped up in these characters it was hard to let them go. And in the best possible way they made me reflect on my own life. And you can't review this book without mentioning the perfection of the narrators. They both embodied these characters and brought them to life. So often narrators detract from the story but in this case they made the book even better. This is one of those books that made me so appreciate the art of storytelling and I wish I had this talent. Thank you to Liz Moore for writing a beautiful story!

A quiet giant of a read.

It just caught my eye and the sample caught my ear and the entire story my heart.

What a book! Great narrative, well written and a captive story. Don't miss this one if you are a compassionate caring and understanding person.

Five Star Book - LOVED IT

A beautiful book about the burdens of loneliness and regret, the healing that can take place when we step outside of our comfort zones, and what happens when we allow the love and friendship of others to lighten the loads we carry in our hearts and souls. I loved every minute. The narrators for the audio version really made this book a special one for me.

Characters I cared about

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

How would I judge this?

Who was your favorite character and why?

I loved the book because I loved all the characters. No favorites.

What about Kirby Heyborne and Keith Szarabajka ’s performance did you like?

Both talented, distinct and appropriate. Szarabajka also does the voice of Yolanada and it's all great,

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

I don't want to listen to anything in one sitting.

Any additional comments?

I have been complaining lately that I don't find many books by women to read. I don't like romance or chicklit. This book was wonderful and I was grateful to find it. The only thing I didn't like is that it makes you care about the characters and lets you anticipate something wonderful happening between them but stops before that scene. For me the book had no ending. It really does annoy me. In real life you would be able to find out what happened and have closure.

A really intriguing story

What did you like best about this story?

I really liked the descriptions the author used and the suspence of how story lines played around the fringes and integrating but it's just a tease.

Which scene was your favorite?

The scene of Kel taking off from school after his breakdown. The imagery was fantastic.