Heft by Liz Moore

Heft by Liz Moore
Buy Heft by Liz Moore at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: General Fiction
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: One of the most unusual love stories which I've ever read with at least one very unlikley hero. I was completely drawn in to the story.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 352	Date: May 2012
Publisher: Hutchinson
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-0091944209
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Arthur Opp taught at the University until one day, after some unfortunate circumstances in which he was blameless, he didn't go in any more. Since then he's worked on, well, getting fat. Food is just about all that matter to him and he eats it in vast quantities, particularly if anything upsets his day. He was always plump but now he weighs in at something like five to six hundred pounds. His friend who lived next door is dead and he lives for the memory of a platonic relationship which he had with one of his students. He hasn't heard from her for many years but then one day contact is made. Charlene wants Arthur to help her son.

Kel Keller is Charlene's son. He's also the poor kid from Yonkers who's at an upstate school where the rich kids go. He's not brainy, by any means, but he's a good kid and a sportsman. He's also trying to cope with a disintegrating home life as his mother relies more and more on what comes out of a bottle. Heft is the story of these two people with a most unlikely connection through Charlene.

I thought this book was going to annoy the hell out of me. You see, when we read the book in Arthur's voice he uses & for and as well as O for Oh. I didn't like it. Even at the end of the book I still didn't like it, but it did help to distinguish Arthur and I would hate to have missed this love story. It's not a slushy, Mills and Boon romance but it is the story of selfless love, of love between a parent and child, between boy and girl. I felt better for reading, somehow reassured.

It's also a sympathetic study of loneliness - the security of not leaving the home is balanced out by the lack of human contact. Being ill is lonely - it's just you in there. Knowing that you're not doing what you ought to do is isolating. And being the poor kid in the rich kids' school is lonely - succeeding as the athletic one just gives a veneer of acceptance which doesn't stand a lot of wear. Liz Moore's talent is that you empathise with the characters where you might otherwise have been less than sympathetic about how they got where they are.

The characters get under your skin. I've found myself wondering how they were getting on and I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to Bookbag.

If this book appeals to you then you might like to try A Common Loss by Kirsten Tranter

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