“This feels like an Ian McEwan novel. Served on a bed of Cheever. I can’t offer higher praise than that. But written by a woman. Which is even better.”— Elizabeth Gilbert Spanning the course of a single summer, Private Means is acclaimed memoirist Cree LeFavour’s sumptuous fiction debut—a sharply observed comedy of manners and a moving meditation on marriage, money, and loss. A deliciously … compulsive first novel from New York Times Editor’s Choice author of Lights On, Rats Out, Cree LeFavour’s Private Means captures the very essence of summer in a sharply observed, moving meditation on marriage, money, and loss. It’s Memorial Day weekend and Alice’s beloved dog Maebelle has been lost. Alice stays in New York, desperate to find her dog, while her husband Peter drives north to stay with friends in the Berkshires. Relieved to be alone, Alice isn&apost sure if she should remain married to Peter but she’s built a life with him. For his part, Peter is pleased to have time alone—he’s tired of the lost dog drama, of Alice’s coolness, of New York. A psychiatrist, he ponders his patients and one, particularly attractive, woman in particular. As the summer unfolds, tensions rise as Alice and Peter struggle with infidelity, loneliness, and loss. Escaping the heat of New York City to visit wealthy friends in the Hamptons, on Cape Cod, and in the Berkshires, each continues to play his or her part in the life they’ve chosen together. By the time Labor Day rolls around, a summer that began with isolation has transformed into something else entirely. Matching keen observations on human behavior with wry prose, Private Means, with its sexy, page-turning plot, will draw fans of Nora Ephron and Meg Wolitzer. At once dark, funny, sad, and suspenseful, LeFavour’s debut is a rare find: a tart literary indulgence with depth and intelligence.
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See I like books where there’s not a plot, or much of one. I like to read about UWS bougie types getting together in someone’s luxury high-rise apartment to try and figure out how to find their lost dogs. Or what it’s like in a psychoanalyst’s aged parents VT farmhouse, or what one eats or drinks or talks about while visiting one’s friend’s Berkshire or Hamptons weekend place. Even if I don’t give a fig about any of the people. So I rather got into this book. Just not for the standard reasons. And boy did this book ever make me want to light up a cigarette.
I went into this book expecting to enjoy it. I like the premise–empty-nester couple realizes they’ve grown apart and struggle to determine the course of their relationship–and the cover is striking. Instead, reading the pages felt like a chore, and I could not connect with the characters or the story.
Peter and Alice spend three months contemplating how they arrived at their current marital state. He’s a psychoanalyst put off by how much more she cares about their missing dog than she does him. Having postponed her career after earning a PhD and having their twin daughters, Alice is frustrated by how difficult it is to make that happen now, eighteen years later.
At the risk of revealing spoilers, Peter and Alice whine a lot, drink a lot, fantasize a lot, break marital vows, and generally make you dislike both of them to the point that you hope they stay together because they deserve that misery. Peter thinks he’s a far better man than he is, and Alice is too full of self-pity for you to empathize with her state. I wouldn’t have blamed that dog for fleeing the scene altogether.
The affectation of not using quotation marks must be engaged only when the material supports it. Sally Rooney, for example, can pull it off. Here, though, it feels pretentious, much like Peter. And Alice.
Despite the negatives, I did keep reading. I had to know what Peter and Alice would decide, and I had to make sure the dog was safe. Cree LeFavour may not have written a terribly compelling book, but she did write one that I had to finish.
Private Means by Cree LeFavour is essentially a stream-of-consciousness whining session by two people in a marriage who maybe need a change or maybe need to talk to one another. This kind of book is really difficult to read as it is sometimes hard to know when the conversations are real and when it’s not; when it is real, with whom it is taking place. I don’t want to be in someone else’s head. I have enough going on in my own and I would certainly never make a novel of it. I enjoy a little more actions; when people take hold and solve their problems whomever that may be. I felt like the time-spent reading this book is time I will never get back. I recommend it only if the potential reader things this kind of book is art.
I was invited to read a free ARC of Private Means by Netgalley. All opinions and interpretations contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #privatemeans