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)

Really good listen

What made the experience of listening to Heft the most enjoyable?

The way that the characters become real people that you really care about.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Heft?

I can't say without giving away the story. But I really cared about what happened to Kell, so every moment that pertained to him was memorable, maybe especially his mother's death and the way he reacted.

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

No...

If you could take any character from Heft out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Kell. I want to see what's happened to him since the end of the story. OK. I want to take Arthur Opp out too, to see if Kell changed his life like I think it did.

Any additional comments?

The story builds and builds to the climax and sometimes I wanted to be able to skim through it (like you can when you read text) so I could get there. But listening forces you to hear every bit of this wonderfully written book and you realize how important that is so that you can truly understand these characters.

Entranced

Any additional comments?

It is difficult to explain why I loved this story. It is slow, simply told and honest. I think it is that last thing, honesty, that was so intriguing. That people can just be who they are without apology as they evolve through difficulties of life was a story well told.

good book

It was depressing for much of the book but left you hopeful and feeling good by the end.

Absolutely Fabulous

I have listened to the book 3 times over the past two years. It is one of my all time favorites. The writing style is superb. I laugh and also feel sad at different times. Oh how life is messy but that's what makes it so magical. As I reflect on Arthur Opp, Yolanda and Kel Keller I feel hope. This is why I come back to Heft again and again.

Astonishing!

First off, Keith Szarabajka's performance of the character Arthur Opp makes him feel so very real, like he is talking to you. Arthur Opp becomes someone you'd like to know, someone I wish I could visit.

The story is a sad one. All of the characters are complicated and very human. I only wish it had gone on longer. I really wanted to know what would happen next. There is hope!

I recommend this book. Well worth the time. Loved the narration.

Loved it!!!

What made the experience of listening to Heft the most enjoyable?

Some books are meant to be heard and this is one of them. The narrators really bring the story to life and you really want the characters to be real live people you could go have a coffee with and get to know. I didn't want it to end and was sad when it did..it left me wanting more. Please, please please Liz Moore write a sequel!

Left me frustrated

I would have given five stars, but, I listened to this story, becoming more and more entranced with the characters, and, just as I felt I was finally going to get the payoff of what happens when the finally meet, the story abruptly ends and I wanted to throw my IPhone in a tantrum! "Artistic" endings stink!

Poignant, thoughtful and reflective..

A really good story of a lonely overweight man and a young man with a sick and dysfunctional Mum. The book is two stories in one, the older man and the youner man and the Mum that is the connection between the two. It is beautifully written and the dialogue is thought provoking, gentle and poignant.

A very lovely story.. not too disimilar to Water for Elephants in style and narration.

Such a fascinating tale.

Really wonderful, I loved the alternating narration and although the end was kind of up in the air, it was fitting.

…..Unhappy in its Own Way…..

This novel is real. Life is hard and this book is hard and discouraging—and real. If you just finished watching Schindler’s List and still feel a little too buoyant, then give this book a try. It will surely succeed in reacquainting you will life’s harsh reality.

This book follows two very different characters. Both are portrayed realistically. I found the depiction of Arthur Opp to be insightfully tragic and well fleshed-out. I feel now as if I have a better understanding of the plight of the morbidly obese: what it must be like to be so corpulent that going out in public is a burden too massive to bear. Arthur Opp is a sympathetic character; a man who has given into his one besetting sin. Not so far from any one of us if we were to cease resisting the temptation to do the same. He is not beyond redemption, but it has taken him many years to get into his present state, and no quick remedy is possible. This was a human being and this was a man with a story.

Kel Keller the high-school Baseball phenom seems to be everything that is wrong with the younger generation: Secret home life with an alcoholic mother. Popular athlete who is encouraged to be the hero by day and subverted by his very popularity into becoming the promiscuous party boy by night—you know, normal high school life. Kel is so out of touch with the reality of his own situation that he can’t bring himself to tell the girl he loves his true feelings but then has casual sex with another girl he hardly knows—and thinks nothing of it! His only regret is that his real love finds out: something that any right thinking person would surely expect, but that never even crosses his mind. His story is a spiral out of control that is, if anything, more sad than Arthur Opp eating his way into oblivion. I found it a very alienating experience getting inside the head of such a youth so intent on being misspent. I hated the scenes with Kel Keller, dreaded them when they appeared, not because they were trite or cliché, but because they seemed so true that it caused me to lose any hope for this present generation. If they are like Kel Keller, then we are doomed.


The narration, by two different performers, is first-rate. It is fitting that the two main characters should have separate narrators since they are so very different people. This contributes to the reality of the story.

Kirby Heyborne is Kel Keller. He gives an authentic portrayal of a confused teenager stumbling through life with no guidance and no moral compass. Kirby Heyborne earns praise for imparting what seem to me to be authentic inflections of a young boy who doesn't know how to think like a man.

Keith Szarabajka is Arthur Opp. He gives a sensitive reading of the man who wants to be different but is pulled by his irresistible urges. Keith Szarabajka is so talented that he can give an authentic portrayal of not only an obese middlegaed man but also the young Latina housemaid Yolanda. His portions of the book steal the show, chiefly because he is doing the Arthur Opp sections which are the most engaging portions of the story.