Synopses & Reviews
Willy Muller is an embittered writer of celebrity bios and an equal-opportunity misanthropist. At the age of fifty, he has survived imprisonment for murdering his wife, years of venomous hate mail from the British public and, most recently, the suicide of his daughter Sadie. Willy needs a rest, but he's not going to get it. While recuperating from a heart attack in a Mexican resort with his magnificently silly girlfriend Penny and his vodka-drenched friend Harry, Willy finds himself drawn into a troubling confrontation with his past. He should be working on the screen adaptation of his infamous hack memoir, To Have and to Hold, but instead he becomes engrossed in Sadie's tragic diaries. Reluctantly, he considers his chaotic family history and the notion that only when you die do you run out of chances to be good.
Set in Mexico, Los Angeles and London, Everything You Know is a story of love and loathing, sex and death, and filial relations gone horribly awry. Acidly funny and deeply affecting, it marks the debut of a brilliant and immensely stylish young writer.
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Sparkling…A Waugh-like cast of misfits, hustlers, and losers, all delineated with Swiftean malice and glee."---Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times "Not since Flannery OConnor has a woman writer come along who seems to so thoroughly understand the greasy inner cogs of the male psyche, especially where matters of sex are concerned."---The Baltimore Sun
"Heller many be an assiduously unsentimental novelist, but she knows where the heartstrings are when she needs them. She can be nimble and hilarious. She has a shrewd ear for dialogue and conjures a terrific cast of supporting characters….An acerbic, sneakily touching novel."---The New York Times Book Review
"A caustic and ultimately devastating novel."---The New Yorker
"At once biting and sly, hilarious and haunting. A blazingly good debut."---The Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
Zoë Hellers first novel introduces an unforgettable curmudgeon, Willy Muller, an embittered journalist turned celebrity biographer and misanthrope. At the age of fifty, having survived imprisonment for murdering his wife, years of venomous hate mail from the public, and most recently, the suicide of his daughter, Sadie, Willy is about to become an unlikely candidate for redemption. With its scalpel-sharp wit and brilliant dialogue,
Everything You Know is "a smashing success. Wickedly funny, lively, and---ultimately---moving" (
Newsday).
About the Author
Zoë Heller was born in London and lives in New York City. She is the author of the novels What Was She Thinking? (Notes on a Scandal), The Believers, and Everything You Know.