The Heights

Ask Tim Welch and Kate Oliver, the married couple in THE HEIGHTS, if they're selfish, and surely the reply would be an emphatic no--they care about the kids, their careers, their marriage! Ultimately, though, this novel's conflicts arise as a result of selfish, perhaps profoundly human, streaks in both characters, alternately voiced by Peter Hedges and Amy Ryan with considerable skill. Although the novel occasionally struggles to be as hip as the title's Brooklyn community, the story and its performers still create an absorbing contemporary drama. Will Tim and Kate split up? Will the awkward Bea, performed so earnestly by Alison Pille, save Mr. Welch, her favorite teacher, or bring about his downfall? All these questions create a perfect summer listen. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

November 30, 2009
Hedges's first novel in more than a decade reads a lot like Tom Perrotta minus the satire or Jonathan Tropper with less humor, but Hedges's excellent characterization and writing render it a worthy outing. Tim Welch and Kate Oliver are happily married, living the urban dream in Brooklyn Heights, until the wealthy and beautiful Anna Brody moves in nearby, forcing them to question if happiness is enough. Anna's arrival coincides with the forced retirement of Tim's father, a celebrated women's basketball coach, due to a sexual scandal; a lucrative job for Kate; and the reappearance of Kate's former love, now a television star. And while the entire neighborhood is fascinated with Anna, it's Tim and Kate she pulls into her orbit—intent on taking Tim as a lover—causing the seams of their marriage to fray and forcing them into situations they never would have predicted for themselves, even if the reader isn't exactly surprised at how things play out. The plot tends toward busy, but Hedges (What's Eating Gilbert Grape
) keeps it under control, his sympathetically real characters holding down the novel's solid center.