Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner
Canongate Books
In the pantheon of TV’s most eulogised directors – Chase, Simon, Gilligan – Matthew Weiner, most famous for Mad Men, has always stood out as the most literary, with his knack for dropping visual references to anything from Frank O’Hara to Philip Roth. And if it was already hinted at in Mad Men, it’s crystal-clear in Heather, the Totality: his writerly influences are wholly American. Readers of Wolfe, Cheever or Salinger – some of Weiner’s favourite authors – would not feel displaced in Weiner’s world, inhabited by Upper Manhattan types graced with long limbs and garbed in equally long overcoats, inhaling smokes like there’s no tomorrow. Take for instance two of the book’s main characters, Mark and Karen Breakstone: an affluent couple who live, predictably, “west of Park Avenue”.
So far, so familiar. But readers who bought Heather based on Weiner’s Mad Men credentials, hinging on the promise of soap-opera dramatics and multi-layered scenes that could be dissected ad nauseam, may well have their expectations dashed. There’s no snappy dialogue or memorable one-liners here. No “Change is neither good or bad; it simply is.” Indeed, Matthew Wiener’s first dip into the literary milieu is notably lacking in any kind of dialogue at all. If that sounds unpromising, rest assured: Wiener’s nuanced preoccupation with class, gender, looks and status is present in Heather too. Robert Klasky, a young construction worker who ‘had eaten cigarette butts before he was ten’ is described in clear contrast to the affluent Breakstones. His obsession with – and rape/murder fantasies about – their only daughter, Heather, drives the book’s undeniably arresting plot. Whether that is sufficient to guarantee Weiner’s novel the lasting fame of his TV series remains to be seen.
Words – Eliza Ariadne Kalfa
