Heather, The Totality

By Matt Weiner Canongate, £14.99

Heather, The Totality is the first novel by Matthew Weiner, creator of hit series Mad

Men and writer on The Sopranos ,andit tracks a wealthy Manhattan family and a loner from a poor area in New Jersey, detailing how their lives intersect with brutal consequences. The titular Heather is the beloved daughter of the Manhattanites, the centre of her parents’ world, who is praised for both her beauty and her empathy but who creates fractures in her family as they compete for her attention. The book is written in a mannered, distant style that tends to make the characters feel like archetypes, making it difficult to become emotionally involved in the story. But Weiner displays an impressive turn of phrase, and deftly crafts tension in this brief, thought-provoking novel, which skewers class assumptions and questions how well anyone really knows those closest to them.