Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner, 2017
Little, Brown and Company
144 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316435314
Summary
The explosive debut novel — about family, power and privilege — from the creator of the award-winning Mad Men. One of People magazine's "People Picks."
Mark and Karen Breakstone have constructed the idyllic life of wealth and status they always wanted, made complete by their beautiful and extraordinary daughter Heather.
But they are still not quite at the top.
When the new owners of the penthouse above them begin construction, an unstable stranger penetrates the security of their comfortable lives and threatens to destroy everything they've created. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 29, 1965
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Weslyan University; M.A., University of Southern California
• Awards—9 Emmies; 3 Golden Globes
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Matthew Weiner is an American writer, director and producer. He is the creator of the AMC television drama series Mad Men, which premiered in 2007 and ended in 2015. He is also noted for his work on the HBO drama series The Sopranos, on which he served as a writer and producer during the show's fifth and sixth seasons (2004; 2006–2007). He directed the comedy film Are You Here in 2013, marking his filmmaking debut.
Weiner has received nine Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on Mad Men and The Sopranos, winning seven for Mad Men, as well as three Golden Globe Awards for Mad Men. In 2011, Weiner was included in Time's annual "Time 100" as one of the "Most Influential People in the World." In 2011, The Atlantic named him one of 21 "Brave Thinkers."
Early life and education
Weiner was born in 1965 in Baltimore, to a Jewish family but grew up in Los Angeles. His father was a medical researcher and chair of the neurology department at University of Southern California. His mother graduated from law school but never practiced. He enrolled in the College of Letters at Wesleyan University, studying literature, philosophy, and history and earned an MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television.
Career
Weiner described the start of his career as a "dark time. Show business looked so impenetrable that I eventually stopped writing." During this time, his wife financially supported them with her work as an architect. He began his screenwriting career writing for the short-lived Fox sitcom Party Girl (1996), then as a writer and producer on The Naked Truth and Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Weiner wrote the pilot of Mad Men in 1999 as a spec script while working as a writer on Becker. The Sopranos creator and executive producer David Chase offered Weiner a job as a writer for the series after being impressed by his Mad Men script.
Weiner served as a supervising producer for the fifth season of The Sopranos (2004), a co-executive producer for the first part of the sixth season (2006), and an executive producer for the second part of the sixth season (2007). He has sole or joint credit for 12 episodes overall, including the Primetime Emmy Award-nominated episodes "Unidentified Black Males" (co-written with Terence Winter) and "Kennedy and Heidi" (co-written with David Chase).
In addition to writing and producing, he acted in two Soprano episodes, "Two Tonys" and "Stage 5" as fictional mafia expert Manny Safier, author of The Wise Guide to Wise Guys, on TV news broadcasts within the show.
Weiner also spent a hiatus between two seasons teaching at his alma mater, the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television (now School of Cinematic Arts), where he taught an undergraduate screenwriting class on Feature Rewriting during the Fall 2004 semester.
During his time on The Sopranos Weiner began looking for a network to produce Mad Men. HBO, Showtime, and FX passed on the project. Weiner eventually pitched the series to AMC, which had never produced an original dramatic television series. They picked up the show, ordering a full 13-episode season, and Mad Men premiered on July 19, 2007, six weeks after The Sopranos concluded. Weiner served as showrunner, an executive producer, and head writer of Mad Men throughout its seven seasons. Mad Men has received considerable critical acclaim and has won four Golden Globe Awards and fifteen Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2017, Weiner pubished his debut novel, Heather, the Totality, a noir thriller.
Personal life
Weiner is married to architect Linda Brettler. One of his four sons, Marten Holden Weiner, played the recurring role of Glen Bishop on Mad Men. (FromWikipedia. Retrieved 11/16/2017.)
Book Reviews
Weiner deftly exposes the weirdness of mundane life changes" and "chillingly reminds us of how unstable the ground is that we take for granted beneath our feet.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR's Fresh Air
[C]creepy, unsettling...and queasily seductive.
USA Today
Beyond its chilling portrait of America's social and economic divide, the novel raises a number of thorny questions.… Weiner writes with maximum economy.
Associated Press
You'll devour it in a single, heart-racing sitting.
People
[A] finely honed tale that highlights class conflict.… Weiner somewhat telegraphs his final twist, but the results of that twist may still surprise.
Publishers Weekly
[A] a razor-sharp, fast-paced dark look at the class divide. Fans of Richard Yates will enjoy this chilling addition to noir literature. —Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE
Library Journal
The sense of doom is sharply rendered, characters are well developed, and their motivations are finely wrought. Readers will hope for more book-form fiction from Weiner.
Booklist
From the first sentence, it all starts so innocently.… The creator of Mad Men makes his fiction debut with a noirish novella designed to be read in one hair-raising session.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our GENERIC MYSTERY QUESTIONS to start a discussion for Heather, the Totality … then take off on your own:
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)