Matthew Weiner’s novel doesn’t live up to TV genius

Matthew Weiner is best known as the creator of “Mad Men” and a writer and producer of many episodes of “The Sopranos,” series beloved for their complex, warm, often humorous portrayals of flawed, charismatic men.

His first novel, “Heather, the Totality,” can best be described as a simplistic, cold portrayal of flawed, repellent people. Any reader picking up the book in the hopes of finding Weiner’s gorgeous portraits of human frailty will be disappointed, but grateful it runs just 144 pages.

“Heather, the Totality” revolves around four characters — wealthy Manhattanites Mark and Karen Breakstone and their daughter, Heather, plus a violent sociopath named Bobby. Mark, Karen and Bobby are truly repulsive characters. Heather is almost hilariously unbelievable, written as if Christ had come to earth in the form of Claudia Schiffer. Over the course of the novel, the Breakstones’ and Bobby’s paths cross. Violence ensues.

We are told from the start that Karen only married Mark because of his “potential to be rich.” Mark marries Karen because he thinks she’s “a 10.” Mark makes a ton of money in finance in New York City. They live a life of private schools, luxury vacations and $1,200 Italian coffeemakers.

Meanwhile, we meet Bobby, born in Newark to a heroin addict. Weiner creates a cartoonish vision of Bobby’s childhood, explaining that the child “had eaten cigarette butts and drunk beer before he was ten” and that he had helped her boyfriends and friends “shoot up when they were too sick.” In case we start to feel bad for Bobby, we are told he likes to torture animals. Eventually he murders his mother, gets away with it and winds up working Manhattan construction jobs, where he spies Heather and becomes obsessed.

Heather is presented as a blond, blue-eyed, godlike creature possessing unworldly beauty, wisdom, empathy and intelligence. Weiner makes it seem like she arrives by supernatural means. “She was so beautiful,” Weiner writes, “that when she would inevitably become the center of attention in a park or a store, her newly won friends would look at Karen, or Mark and Karen together, and be unable to hide their surprise that this child belonged to these people.”

But there is more to Heather than her staggering beauty, Weiner tells us. “As Heather grew into a little girl her beauty became more pronounced but somehow secondary to her charm and intelligence, and, most notably, a complex empathy that could be profound.” People become infatuated with Heather, including her parents, who fire babysitters to spend more time around her.

There is the kernel of a good idea in this idea of parents becoming fanatically obsessed with their children, but Weiner spoils it with the general awfulness of Mark and Karen and the side story of Bobby, who, predictably, begins to obsess about Heather in an unhealthy way. Could this story be a satire of uppermiddle-class parents’ tendency to place their children on pedestals?

The answer is no, because the story ends with the predictable clash between the Breakstones and Bobby, and because Bobby is a sexual predator, it is clear who is supposed to win. Hint: It’s not Bobby, so the message is, it seems, that the Breakstones are altogether right to do anything to protect their precious daughter.

So what is this story about, if it is not a satire? It’s unclear.

What made “Mad Men” such a brilliant series is how complex and real the characters felt, and how warmly they were presented onscreen. Don Draper, the series’ main character, was, on paper, a terrible person who had stolen another man’s identity, cheated on his wives, neglected his duties as a father and lied to everyone. And yet, he was irresistible and troubled, as complex as all of us.

That care and complexity is missing from “Heather, the Totality.” It’s too bad, because Weiner is capable of creating masterpieces. Fans of his filmed work would be better off waiting for his next project, “The Romanoffs,” scheduled next year on Amazon.