True Believers

A Novel

De: Kurt Andersen

Narrado por: Vanessa Hart

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Washington Post • San Francisco Chronicle

In True Believers, Kurt Andersen—the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Heyday and Turn of the Century—delivers his most powerful and moving novel yet. Dazzling in its wit and effervescent insight, this kaleidoscopic tour de force of cultural observation and seductive storytelling alternates between the present and the 1960s—and indelibly captures the enduring impact of that time on the ways we live now.

Karen Hollander is a celebrated attorney who recently removed herself from consideration for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her reasons have their roots in 1968—an episode she’s managed to keep secret for more than forty years. Now, with the imminent publication of her memoir, she’s about to let the world in on that shocking secret—as soon as she can track down the answers to a few crucial last questions.

As junior-high-school kids back in the early sixties, Karen and her two best friends, Chuck and Alex, roamed suburban Chicago on their bikes looking for intrigue and excitement. Inspired by the exotic romance of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, they acted out elaborate spy missions pitting themselves against imaginary Cold War villains. As friendship carries them through childhood and on to college—in a polarized late-sixties America riven by war and race as well as sex, drugs, and rock and roll—the bad guys cease to be the creatures of make-believe. Caught up in the fervor of that extraordinary and uncanny time, they find themselves swept into a dangerous new game with the highest possible stakes.

Today, only a handful of people are left who know what happened. As Karen reconstructs the past and reconciles the girl she was then with the woman she is now, finally sharing pieces of her secret past with her national-security-cowboy boyfriend and activist granddaughter, the power of memory and history and luck become clear. A resonant coming-of-age story and a thrilling political mystery, True Believers is Kurt Andersen’s most ambitious novel to date, introducing a brilliant, funny, and irresistible new heroine to contemporary fiction.

Praise for True Believers
 
“Funny, fiendishly smart.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“A great American novel.”—Vanity Fair
 
“A big, swinging novel . . . [a] colorful story . . . This could be the most rambunctious meeting your book club will have for a long time.”—The Washington Post
 
“Intelligent and insightful . . . Think The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and Atonement, a ’60s-era female Holden Caulfield. . . . Andersen is an agile storyteller. . . . [There are] witty, occasionally even profound observations about the ’60s and today.”—USA Today
 
“So epic: Part thriller, part coming-of-age tale, the novel alternates between the present and the 1960s, capturing some of America’s most pivotal moments in history like a time capsule.”—Marie Claire
 
“This is an ambitious and remarkable novel, wonderfully voiced, about memory, secrets, guilt, and the dangers of certitude. Moreover, it asks essential questions about what it means to be an American and, in a sense, what it means to be America.”—Booklist (starred review)
 
“Fascinating and wisely observant.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Funny, fiendishly smart.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A great American novel.”—Vanity Fair

“A big, swinging novel . . . [a] colorful story . . . This could be the most rambunctious meeting your book club will have for a long time.”—The Washington Post

“Intelligent and insightful . . . Think The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and Atonement, a ’60s-era female Holden Caulfield. . . . Andersen is an agile storyteller. . . . [There are] witty, occasionally even profound observations about the ’60s and today.”—USA Today

“So epic: Part thriller, part coming-of-age tale, the novel alternates between the present and the 1960s, capturing some of America’s most pivotal moments in history like a time capsule.”—Marie Claire

“This is an ambitious and remarkable novel, wonderfully voiced, about memory, secrets, guilt, and the dangers of certitude. Moreover, it asks essential questions about what it means to be an American and, in a sense, what it means to be America.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Fascinating and wisely observant.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

“Exhilarating . . . sober, thoughtful . . . accessible and often funny . . . an absorbing, well-told tale.”—Fortune

very listenable political mystery/ romance

This is romance in the people-in-love sense but more a romance of the 60s. With a 2013 setting, the action revolves around research into the past, so it???s a tale told through filtered memory and research - just like history. The 64 yr old law prof main character writes a memoir to set the record straight on her 60s activism before she starts to lose her memory, and knowing "how memory and history are sugar coated," she tries to arrive at the truth. The mystery is secondary to the social history and coming of age detail.

In places the main storyline was weak and implausible - but I was too busy enjoying the descriptions of the 60s to notice most of the time. The novel tries too hard to make witty observations on culture then and now, but I enjoyed that part too - can't have an easy read and perfect philosophy in the same novel. There is reflection on the evolution of the left and on big brother technology. I thought there was little too much chatty detail about the main character coming of age and she was a little too Forrest Gump-ish in her witness to the iconic events of the time.

This might be a much different listen for different generations, from the late middle-aged reconstructing their own biography by the cultural landmarks used by the law prof to contemporaries of the prof???s granddaughter whose first memory = 9/11. As
a tale of 60s activism revisited, I give a slight edge to Neil Gordon???s The Company You Keep, but I still loved almost every minute of this listen.

Interesting Premise

This started out slow for me, but then it pulled me in. I wondered what this big secret was, and when it was revealed, I was surprised. This was an interesting look at what it was like to be a teenager in the 60s, told from the perspective of a now 60 year old. I can’t help but think of the similarities between the protesters then and now.

Outstanding and extremely original novel

Written by a man, this novel in the voice of a woman is extraordinary. A successful lawyer in her sixties looks back on her activist youth in the late 1960s, writing a memoir about it and researching and finding new shocking things about her life and loves. It's engrossing, never flagging, bittersweet and very intelligent.

Great for us 60s generation

I loved reliving the times of my youth through this book. Well done! Hoping for more like this one.

Captivating thriller & characters well researched

I have enjoyed two other books by Kurt Andersen, and would listen to anything by him again. Vanessa Hart was good, and glad they used only one narrator. When multiple narrators are used it is distracting.

I decided on this book knowing nothing about it. And within a few minutes, discovered that the main character was my age, from the same state, and like me attended an East Coast college in 1968, and a diabetic. It is not often you read a thriller about people you could have been given the inclination. It is fiction but the actual history is well-researched.