Envy

by Kathryn Harrison

Will has a good sex life–with the woman he married. So why then is he increasingly plagued by violent erotic fantasies that, were they to break out of his imagination and into the real world, have the power to destroy not only his family but his career? He’s about to lose his grip when he attends a college reunion and there discovers evidence of a past sexual betrayal, one serious enough that it threatens to overpower the present, even as it offers a key to Will’s dangerous obsessions.

Hypnotic, beautifully written, this mesmerizing novel by “an extremely gifted writer” (San Francisco Chronicle) explores the corrosive effect of evil–and how painful psychological truths long buried within a family can corrupt the present and, through courage and understanding, lead to healing and renewal. “Like Scheherezade in the grip of a fever dream, Kathryn Harrison . . . has written one of those rare books, in language of unparalleled beauty, that affirm the holiness of life,” said Shirley Ann Grau, about Poison . And the same can be said about Envy .

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Romance, Novels, American

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Kathryn Harrison is the author of the novels Envy, The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Poison, Exposure, and Thicker Than Water.

She has also written memoirs, The Kiss and The Mother Knot, a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago, a biography, Saint Therese of Lisieux, and a collection of personal essays, Seeking Rapture.

Ms. Harrison is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review; her essays, which have been included in many anthologies, have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, Salon, and other publications.

She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another older Harrison Book which stayed with me.
Sizzling---

Loved the writing- the tease- the mystery suspense..,
And a little steam!

[A.R. McKenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Envy is an enigmatic and powerful story brilliantly told by the talented Kathryn Harrison. It's a story that crept under my skin and stayed there until the final tense pages. It's an extremely sad and dark story.

I love the way in which Harrison digs deep and tells us all the flaws and insecurities that rest in the characters. Perhaps I am supposed to feel disgust toward the main character, Will, over his actions, but I actually feel sympathy for him. I can't believe all the horrible things that happened to him. I was in disbelief over the situations of the other characters as well.

I'm really fond of character driven novels, and in the end all of the characters do really connect with each other. It really is shocking toward the end when everything is revealed. The Pandora's box of secrets is opened and the truth can no longer hide in the dark any longer. It is extremely painful and heart breaking to learn the truth alongside Will.

This is a complex, layered novel, so I'm not really surprised that it got such low reviews. I try to not pay any mind to the reviews and ratings before I read a book, and I'm so happy I gave this book a chance. Kathryn Harrison blew me away with her memoir The Kiss, so I knew that Envy wasn't going to disappoint. I love how she isn't afraid to write about taboo themes or subjects that people would rather ignore or forget. The characters in this novel aren't plain evil or good, just like in real life. Instead, they are complex characters that are illuminated by Harrison's beautiful writing.

The past becomes the present when one ignores the past. I think that this is an important message about Envy, one that is often overlooked by many. I was left with many questions once I finished the book, but I was left with a satisfying hope that things were going to work out for Will. It was really hard to put down this novel, and it captivated me from beginning to end. I highly recommend it if you like dramas and novels with psychological insight.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

This is an author I first discovered believe it or not through a random airport buy a number of years ago, when I picked up her racily-covered 2006 Exposure during a boring layover and ended up really enjoying it, albeit in a "high-class Judith Krantz" kind of way. And so when I came across her 2005 melodrama Envy at my local library a few weeks ago, itself a New York Times Notable Book that year, I decided to pick it up too; and once again, I'm ultimately glad I did, although still argue that it's better thought of as the high end of semi-trashy mainstream fiction than the low end of literary fiction. It's essentially two stories at once, a highbrow and lowbrow one that connect in various fascinating ways -- it's simultaneously a Prince of Tides style psychological examination of the various themes behind various Greek over-the-top dramas, as seen through an actual psychiatrist experiencing family problems and seeing an "meta-psychiatrist" for therapy, while also being a legitimate playing-out of an actual over-the-top Greek melodrama in this man's life, ridiculously outrageous concepts that would usually be dismissed as soap-operaish silliness if not so expertly woven together with the "brainy" part of the story. It's best to leave as much of this plot as possible a secret before reading, which is partly why I wanted to write only a short review of it today; but needless to say, keep your eye out on how the things the main character discusses among family members and his therapist so weirdly relate to some of the bizarre turns his actual life takes throughout the novel. An excellent airport or beach read; in fact, I encourage you to look at Harrison's entire ouevre in general on those terms.

[Boo Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Holy shit this book is fucked up. Bought it when I was 14 and I am SO glad I didn’t read it then. Found it frustrating how all the characters spoke in such long complex words like walking thesaurus’. Really takes a while to kick off then you are in what the actual fuck mode from about 60% through. Found myself in such a bad headspace whilst reading this. It was written in 2004 so a lot of it has aged badly. The main character is a misogynistic fuck and so unlikeable. Taboo topics covered. Not my cup of tea writing wise but the narrative beats did have my jaw on the floor.

[Jodell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two twins were born Able being good, Cain being bad
Able got everything he desired and
Cain got nothing at all except his envy that he used as a badge of honor and dishonesty

In the end they both suffer and it cant be explained that you pay the price of your brothers
crimes in the jealous field he had sown because he took what was not his as if it were his very own
No one really win's and no one is blameless in their goal they are all just human and have black parts on their souls.

[Chris Waterford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow ! What a book! So many ethical issues to do with relationships and lots of twists and turns. Took quite a while to get going but worth persevering with. My favourite Kathryn Harrison book (so far).
9/10

[Yaya]

Not an easy read. I stuck it out to the end. Towards the end of the book the story line was good. But still did not make it worth reading.

[Tiffani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure where to begin. With the plot? It is difficult to describe the plot without it sounding convoluted. I’m not saying Envy is convoluted, but that my description of it would it be. It is a complicated story, at the center of which is Will, a man in his mid to late forties. He is married to Carole and father to Samantha and Luke. Will has a nearly identical twin brother, nearly identical because Mitch has a birthmark covering 60 percent of his face. The twins haven't spoken to one another in 15 years and Will isn't sure why that is. There is a lost child, a lost brother, and the possible discovery of a previously unknown a child.

This is one of the few times when I would say that the details of the plot don’t matter. Envy is about more than a series of events. It is a psychological family drama involving sexual tension and competition, obsession, betrayal, and profound loss. It is crazy and disturbing...and its enthralling. Envy is the fourth book I’ve read by Kathryn Harrison. Her other books include Exposure, The Kiss (a memoir), and Thicker Than Water. When I finished Envy I went and looked at my old book journals to see what I wrote and found that I was just as captivated by Harrison’s writing then as I am now. Her books tend to veer into uncomfortable territory, so be warned. It can be rough journey, but it is such a good one.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Perhaps best known for her 1997 memoir, The Kiss, in which she recounted her affair with her estranged father, Harrison is an expert at exploring themes of transgression, betrayal, and obsession. Envy deals with it all: marital estrangement, sexual dysfunction, sibling rivalry, and parental grief. Though riveting in parts and suspenseful the entire way through, the novel's sheer drama, approaching the formulaic, suffocated a few critics. The characters (some flat, others narcissistic and passionless) flail about in their own misery, inciting some sympathy but also contempt. Harrison's writing is "hot hot hot," says the San Francisco Chronicle, but some critics wondered what it all added up to__lessons in how to find truth and reality, or mere shock value?

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Coffeeboss · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've liked Katherine Harrison (The Seal Wife) and been intrigued if a bit weirded out by her (The Kiss), and now I found a book of hers I didn't like. Rampant with sexuality, though barely stimulating, her characters cheat, manipulate, ignore, stalk, and steal each other's partners. Oh, and not too surprisingly, there is a tease of incest here too to make it all more shocking. Except that it is all actually pretty boring, and the main character Will, a psychiatrist, is so emotionally unstable and selfish that you just want to slap him.

[Stephanie Sun · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kathryn Harrison is a good writer, but Envy is not a good book. It starts off well, building up some interesting tension between the twins at the Cornell reunion scene. The dead son storyline wouldn't have been so bad either... and I suppose the twisted maybe-incest would have been sort of thrilling in a Gaitskill sort of way, except... this is ultimately a book about a psychopathic rapist twin brother, and that's not a book I would ever knowingly sign up to read.

[Erik · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was terrible. I initially picked it up because of the NYTimes notable book flag on the cover, and then continued because the protagonist was a Cornell alum. The psychotherapist talk was awful, slow, and painfully written. There was a twist in the book that made me want to read through to the end, but there were so many loose ends and unanswered questions that it really added up to a waste of my time. The twist in retrospect was completely gratuitous.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harrison is a messed up person, but I'll keep reading her books. This one follows twin brothers and the atrocities they do to others. Lots of bizarre sex in this, but the book is spellbinding, fast paced, sad, honest, sweet, real.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book with this much sex in it, it sure was boring.

[Daisy · Rating 1 out of 5]

how did this get published? what on earth did i just read? love the author’s memoirs but this isn’t even comparable.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book especially if you considered that Mitch is the id to Will's superego. It is especially salient when Mitch disappeared when Will got married to Carole. Mitch was the aggressive sexual id dark-side to Will's hyperanalytical superego. Although I really like it, I cannot give it 5 stars b/c it is missing something that I can't really say; so I rate this book a 4.5 stars. But this book places Kathyrn Harrison as one of my favorite authors.

Will, a psychoanalyst, attends his 25th college reunion where he gets asked a lot about his famous twin brother who is a swimming athlete (a la Phelps) and meets up with an old college flame, Elizabeth who maybe had their child named Jennifer. While Will insists that he knows the paternity of Jennifer, Elizabeth does not see the point of a paternity test as it will not change anything for any of them. Will mourns for the lose of his son, Luke and dreams of being in heaven with him but he was shocked that Will had a mortal face and was given to mortal death. Will thinks about the wonder of being a father that he is sure is not shared by his wife, Carole since she is not given into introspection the same way that Will is. He further looks at the 500 word autobiography that his classmates write as a defective sign that is incomplete in its thoroughness in giving their life the necessary texture of their real life.

Women like to read fantasy about being man-handled while Carole loves f*cking her husband. Will and his father catch up once a month on books and movies that they have experienced. Will's father tells Will that @ 74, his father is having an affair with Charlotte. It turns out that Will's mother who was busy with a cleaning business she just started gave her blessing to Will's father to have an affair. By having the affair, Will's retired father had something to do as well as got reacquainted with his own body. Will's father became acquainted with Charlotte at his new hobby of photography became popular in NYC as a harbinger of seeing simple objects from an artistic lens of his father. He wants to believe that his father shines an illuminating light on the mundane. Later on, Will's dad was freaked out when Charlottes husband came and acted as if his wife being with Will's dad was the most natural thing in the world. Will's father's photographs inspire people to do the mundane things in life instead of the impossible things in this life.

As a self-described agnostic, Will states the unconscious is God's country as it is the only place where his son lives in his dreams. According to one of Will's patients, sex with whatever girl he picks up gives his life a vitality that he would normally lack. Will in turn confesses to his father that he gets a sexual charge whenever he has a session with a female patient. Will is hyperanalytical to keep himself from his own feelings.

Instead of taking a break from work due to his inappropriate thoughts, Will doubled his case load. He describes a growing distance b/w his wife and him after Luke died especially sexually as the only position they did it in was doggystyle while Carole refused Will in getting her off. Will diagnoses Carole refusing to be emotionally engaged to Will during sex as wanting to maintain control and be alone during the act. He attributes his sudden surge to lust b/c he wants to get away from his own head and into another woman's body. Will's fantasies drift from consensual sex to violent sex bordering on rape. He dreams of rageful sex that is violent and angry while his wife read true crime books that deal with sex and violence. Although he believes that his violent daydreams is a response to Carole's distancing the emotional aspects of sex for him, he fears he might suddenly act out his constant obsessive violent sexual thoughts. Carole believes that Will brings home his job and creates problems where none previously exists. Will believes it is the particular conflict b/w husband and wife that glues marriages together. Will thinks that if mental illness is an accepted part of a person's psychology, it is harder to eradicate.

Will begins to think his preoccupation with sex is infecting the minds of his patient so that that is all he hears when he has sessions with them. Will discovers a young mid-20's patient who is a self-described collector of older men with her 37 one night stands. She tells him that unlike men her age, the older men she is with take their time and are grateful for scoring with her which she likes b/c it makes her feel appreciated. She starts making fun of #38; professors as being pedophiles b/c they want to be with people who are young enough to be their daughters. She used the story of #38 as a prelude to Will so he would be so turned on that he had to have her. Will thinks that the young woman's compulsion to collect older men is a way for her to gain power by seducing them. So he refers her to 2 women psychologist.

Unfortunately, the young woman does not get the hint and barges into Will's office and stripped naked so that he has to face his lust for a younger woman head on. Even though Will does not think the young woman is beautiful, he does think her body is a thing of beauty compared to his wife who has mothered 2 children. She gives him a BJ and swallows then they f*ck and she gets off twice with her not giving any look of appreciation towards him. While Will feels guilty about his role in being forced to have sex b/c he is unconsciously turned on, she is in total control of the action as she knows what she wants and how to achieve orgasm for herself. He likes the way she tastes when he goes down on her and she cums three times when he eats her out. When they are done, she tells him that she is Jennifer and offers a piece of hair for DNA testing. And that, Elizabeth was sleeping with Mitch so even though he might get a DNA match, he still won't know whether he is the father or Mitch is the father. Jennifer seduced #39 who might be her father into giving her multiple orgasms. Meanwhile, Will feels uncontrollable anger at Mitch for betraying him by f*cking his college girlfriend while they were in college and likewise his own betrayal of his wife by f*cking his maybe daughter.

Will states that Carole's beauty lay in her face that communicated tranquility though she had an energetic body that was sex based. Will is disappointed on how distant Mitch has become since he became a famous swimmer. Being a father who obsesses about the safety of his children, Will finds it ironic that Luke drowned on his watch b/c he loosened the life jacket when they were at the lake.

Will is dismayed that Carole has not violently expressed her emotions at losing her only son, Luke. He also fears it is just a matter of time before Carole blows up the whole family b/c she has repressed her anger about Luke for so long. Whereas Will wants to be fully conscious about all his decisions, Carole just likes being present in the moment. Will remembers the first time he took Carole out and they slept together that very evening and he was the one who popped her cherry. Carole liked Will going down on her and told him that she let him deviginized her b/c he was going to marry her.

Will feels extremely guilty for being an adulterer with possibly his daughter that for the first time in his life he cannot get it up for his wife, Carole. Furthermore, he has dreams of killing his brother for cuckolding him as well as not wanting to talk to his wife about their new found issue. So he decides to meet Elizabeth to discuss Jennifer's actions and accusations. Elizabeth acts clinically cold towards Will. Will describes Jennifer's criteria for seducing older men as men who are professionals no younger than 45 yrs of age with glasses. He tells Elizabeth about Jennifer's collecting older men and for her it is less about seducing them than a transaction with sex as the main objective. When he finally admits to Elizabeth that he was sleeping with her daughter, he switches to get a confession from her on her sleeping with Mitch. Elizabeth told Will that she initially thought Mitch was a more daring version of Will that is the reason Elizabeth started sleeping with Mitch. When Will became enraged by Elizabeths amoral behavior, Elizabeth countered with Jennifer being an amoral, ambitious, sexually experienced could have his license for his own amoral behavior of sleeping with a girl 22 yrs his junior.

Will now thinks that since Mitch slept with Elizabeth, he might have slept with more of Will's previous girlfriends. Will searches previous girlfriends to which one Mitch could have slept with. He feels his life is spiraling out of control now that there is a possibility that Mitch slept with his other girlfriends and that Jennifer possibly saved his semen to discredit him. Now, Will associates his transgression with Jennifer with Mitch's transgression with Elizabeth against him. Both Jennifer and Mitch willfully fooled Will into a sexual transgressive situation. Will likes how Mitch and him share a girl that symbolizes a return to singularity for the identical twins that maybe represents Will's yearning for his lost twin. Will goes to a girl he slept with and found out that Mitch slept with her too. I like the idea of how Mitch and Will are two sides of the same person. That girls can be turned on by the aggressive sex that they have with the disfigured Mitch and can make love and talk with the hyperanalytical Will. Mitch also represents Will's unhappy childhood and potential successful and famous self.

Will decides to tell his father about Mitch's cuckolding behavior towards Will. To his amazement, his father was calm when Will recounted his story and he later understood the reason. His father told Will that Mitch slept with his fiancée, Carole before Will's wedding day. On the night before their wedding, Carole went to the twins parents to explain what happened to her. It also explains why Will's mother was aghast when she saw Luke hang pictures of Mitch on his wall and why they disowned Mitch. When their father confronts Mitch on sexually assaulting his brother's future bride, Mitch is not remorseful on what he did. It seems that Mitch is id to Will's superego. Will remembers one Halloween when Mitch begged to change costumes with his brother and sees how differently others treated him from his brother. Whereas Will was treated normally by others, Mitch was seen as a pariah (perhaps can be seen as having racial/socio-economic overtones).

Carole tells Will after Mitch raped her she divides herself to what happens before the rape and what happens after the rape. Carole feels responsible for Lukes death b/c of her f*cking Mitch, the cosmic gods are somehow punishing her. Carole throws a peanut butter jar @ Will's head after learning that he slept with Jennifer. Jennifer called awhile back and she ended getting a paternity test that showed that she was not his daughter. After Carole through the jar at Will's head, she took him to the ER to get his gash stitched up. After which, she forgave Will's infidelity in exchange for his acquiescing to her need to have a new child.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm reading less these days since I have a newborn, so I find that I have less patience for books that I don't enjoy. This book was gifted to me years ago and I read the first chapter, then put it away. This time around, I read just over half of it, but didn't feel compelled to read more for two reasons: 1. I had a feeling I knew where this was going and it wasn't good, and 2. I didn't like any of the characters. If Will is feeling turned on by his female patients, and is discussing this with his mentor, shouldn't the mentor do something? Instead Daniel takes it in stride and lets him continue seeing all his former patients. Some gobblygook is said about how they will have to restart their therapy all over again, but that's better than having your therapist imagine you naked... right?

Obviously in the first scene, when we learn that Elizabeth, Will's ex, got pregnant with a daughter around the time they broke up, readers have to be suspicious, particularly of this girl who has an old man fetish and who won't leave Will alone. She's not actually his daughter in the end, but how could Will be so stupid- he suspects the kid is his and spends a lot of time ruminating about it, and he knows her name. There's a reason we don't learn the girl's name, Jennifer, until after they have sex. Because then that would be WAY too obvious.

The descriptive writing is good, and I especially liked this passage: "...I had this thing for glass paperweights. There was always one I needed to have, and I'd be like - I couldn't really think about anything else until I got it. So I'd babysit or go through garbage cans for soda bottles to, you know, get the nickel deposits, or I'd do chores. Whatever I had to do, to get the money together to pay for it. And then, when I got it, this dumb thing I'd been, like, frantic to have, I wouldn't be so much satisfied as relieved. Because then I wouldn't have to think about how I needed it anymore. I had it, so I could get on with other stuff."

[Bud Mallar · Rating 4 out of 5]

kinda not what I expected, kinda awfully 'slow' in the beginning before corners were turned.

Some messed up characters, situations, a lot of 'analysis' and certainly no action.

And I do understand the wide range of ratings on this, be the reason there was too much 'talk' and not enough action, or the overall subject matter, or the detailed sex, or the cultural boundaries crossed.

On my side, if not murder, mayhem and sex, give me good character studies and lots of little points to 'think about,' of which many are contained herein.

Different, enjoyable in a different sense than figuring out who the murderer was and why they did it, but like 'Exposure' by Ms Harrison, perhaps some times needs to pass before reading another of hers...

[Esther Zhuang · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5...

you mean to tell me that a psycho-analyst / psychologist doesn't know what to do when someone unexpectantly takes off all their clothes in their office?? Feel like it would happen more often in their line of work than others or to at least expect it, couldn't he have just called the ambulance and forced an involuntary hold and mental health assessment? but the plot hinges on that either he has sex with this 24 year old ex-patient girl or she'll scream and say she raped him.

Everything links back to the central theme of water, but had to force myself to keep reading as it wasn't that interesting.

[Sally Duros · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this book for the Chicago Sun-Times Book Review section. It was published 7/15/05. This book resides at the intersection of mysticism and psychology. It's insights are obscured by the parameters of the writer's own point of view. Huh? Read it and you'll see what I mean.

Kathryn Harrison's Envy: More Sizzling Sex Secrets
By Sally Duros

Kathryn Harrison has delivered a compelling tale in her brooding new novel, Envy. Readers who admired her controversial memoir, The Kiss, will find themselves in familiar territory here.

In this, her first contemporary novel since Thicker than Water in 1991, Harrison speaks from the viewpoint of a character appropriate for her baby boomer audience. Will Moreland is a psychoanalyst, graduate of the class of '79, successful, married, and father of two children. We meet Will at a moment of surface calm. But we learn quickly that he is on the brink of a personal crisis building since the accidental drowning of his 10-year-old son, Luke, a few years before. Will suffers from a hyper-analytical and over-articulate mind. The intellect that serves him well in his practice hinders his personal life. As a psychoanalyst, he believes he can think his way to the root cause of any human experience, but, in truth, his intellect hobbles his ability to see clearly.

Will is shaken by dreams that suggest he's undergone a grisly transformation since Luke's death. And it's true that grief has profoundly changed him and his relationship with his highly composed wife, Carole. A wall has come between them, and their previously healthy sex life has been reduced to what Will views as an "indulgence of his need," a lukewarm transaction based on "mercy." In turn, Will suffers from a sexual obsession so severely distracting that he has considered taking a leave from his psychoanalytic practice. Will's inner life is also haunted by ruminations about his estranged twin brother, Mitch, who is identical except for a purple birthmark that disfigures half his face. An Olympic swimmer, Mitch has achieved heroic status swimming on behalf of good causes worldwide.

Early in Envy, Will opens an unfortunate line of inquiry with a lover from 25 years ago at a college reunion. Their conversation leads to a series of events that snare Will onto a path that connects the past and the present in twisted, painful ways. The reader learns there are secrets, and we see new secrets being created -- sizzling sexual secrets. The more Will struggles in his situation, the tighter the noose, the greater his immobilization, until the rope of events snaps and the story reaches an unexpected -- albeit slightly unsatisfactory -- resolution.

The plot is moved along by the sexually frank-to-a-fault, highly contemporary character of Jennifer, a nail-biting, multiple-pierced literary cousin of Monica Lewinsky, who introduces the old-fashioned Will to the wonders of new lubricants and regales him with descriptions of perfectly calibrated sexual acts. Also assisting the exposition is Will's father, a photographer, and Will's psychiatrist mentor, Daniel.

There is a lot of talk in Envy -- smart and highly educated, with many references to pop culture and art significant to baby boomers and their tribe. All the talk befits a book that is in many ways multiple-layered, top-level psychological sleuthing, a kind of psychic whodunit. What occurs among the characters is considerably less riveting than what occurs within them. For Harrison, this creates the challenge of solving a largely ruminative mystery.

Harrison takes us on a deep-sea dive, not a dog paddle, and we can't help wondering how we will find the surface again. But Harrison is so gifted, with such a true eye and voice, that she pulls us to the surface without giving the reader the bends. Her hyper-focused imagery is fresh and astonishing, and it is the breathtaking aliveness of her descriptions of environments -- exterior and interior -- that carry the reader through to a satisfactory end.

Envy is a deep inquiry into the nature of personal identity and how the mirrors of those around us form our identity. This same quest is at the core of The Kiss, which described her seduction at the age of 20 by her narcissistic father. Readers familiar with The Kiss will be struck by the many similarities between the two books.

Because of the high-voltage subject matter of Harrison's books, it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. Existential angst, incest, sexual deviance, self mutilation dominate the foreground of an anguished landscape. This is not happy territory. Her characters act out of urge and obsession, blindly seeking intimacy and love.

Harrison's dark night has given her superhuman powers of observation and significant poetry in her prose But one can't help wishing Harrison would turn her laser-like focus more often to gentler, happier themes. When we ask why Harrison would choose to paint these bleak landscapes, the answer is because she must. Her impulse is to find the heart of her identity. The themes she explores are central to her being.

Still, Harrison provides a kind of happy discovery in the resolution of Envy that intellect is ultimately ineffective at parsing human experience into understandable, easily digested chunks. And that the single most important truth in our lives is the valuable connections we make with each other.

[Randi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A middle-aged psychologist is happily married, but having disturbing dreams and fantasies. Attending a college reunion reveals disturbing secrets and cracks open his life. Kathryn Harrison is an excellent writer, but this novel didn't pick up interest and speed until the end.

[vyoletkyss · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring as all hell. Couldn't force myself past 22%. Came here to post, saw a spoiler and am glad I didn't bother to try to complete it.

[Tiffany Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found that it jumped around a lot so I couldn't get past half of the book.

[Felicity Waterford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a mad fan of the book. Found the main character to be self involved and not interesting enough but it really picked up in the last 10% of the book.

[Leslie Portu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected. A sexually explicit soap opera plot written by a talented intellectual. Frequently excessively introspective. Yet compelling. An interesting read.

[Chloe Miller · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bland, boring “twist”. Focused on the male protagonist but was clearly written by a female which made the writing janky and unrealistic.

[Christie (The Ludic Reader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mad love for Kathryn Harrison. I think she’s a beautiful writer and she often tackles difficult subjects, train wrecks from which you can not turn away.

Envy is the story of psychoanalyst Will Moreland. The landscape of his life is pitted with estranged relationships (his identical – save for the brother’s wine-stain birthmark – twin, Mitch); death (his young son, Luke, killed in a boating accident) and a strained sexual relationship with his wife, Carole (they still do it, but not face to face and Will isn’t allowed to touch her). From these more-connected-than-you-think threads, Harrison weaves a story which is often funny, sometimes creepy, and slightly over-wrought (particularly near the end).

The novel opens as Will is about to return to his alma mater for his 25th reunion. He’s clearly not interested in the majority of his classmates. He’s on the lookout for two people in particular: his brother, whom he hasn’t seen since he married Carole 15 years ago and Elizabeth, his college girlfriend. His brother is a no-show. Elizabeth is there, but their reunion brings to the surface a disturbing revelation.

There are elements of Envy which revisit some of the themes Harrison has used before in her work: sex used as power, grief, incest. It’s one of the reasons why I like her work so much- she’s practically fearless. Still, I didn’t love this book. I understand Will is traumatized by the death of his young son. I understand that as a professional in the mental health field he’s likely to be less astute about his own feelings and motives, but Envy (for me at least) suffers under the strain of too much plot. For instance, I liked Will’s dad, but do I care about his extra-marital relationship or his second career as a photographer. Not particularly.

And I didn’t like the ending all that much. Some pretty devastating things happen in this novel, yet Carole and Will seem to move past it all almost effortlessly. Since the book is told entirely from Will’s point of view, Carole’s feelings about the loss of her son, her struggles to carry on, her own traumatic experiences are exposed only in dialogue and only at the very end. On the other hand, Will examines and re-examines his feelings, sort of distantly and myopically, though. Sometimes I just wanted to see him as a middle-aged man trying to do his best. And who, might I ask, is paying the least bit of attention to Samantha, the couple’s surving child?

Still, it’s Kathryn Harrison and I’ll take one of her books over just about anything else out there any day of the week.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thoughts so far, on page 198 out of 300: I must say that I had assumed, from the description, that this book would be a lot more "action"-oriented than it has turned out to be. The main character, Will, is philosophical and analytical to the EXTREME, oh my goodness; being that he is a pyschiatrist, I suppose it makes good sense that he would be. However, most of his self-analyzation - about himself, his life, his marriage, his non-existant relationship with his brother, his past, his present, his fantasies, and pretty much his every thought, feeling, and encounter - gets a little boring most of the time. Large sections of the book are devoted to this, as his inner thoughts go off on one tangent after another. These parts, to me, are tiresome and dull. The book redeems itself, however, by interspersing chunks that are FAR more interesting, and even humorous. Will has one client in particular who I really love, and his sessions with her remind me somewhat of one of my favorite books, Blue Angel by Francine Prose. Unfortunately, these sections are few and far between - I would like to see much more of their interactions. I'll write a few follow-up sentences when I finish the book...
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ETA --
Well, I just finished reading the book, and I ended up liking it a great deal more than I thought I would. The last third of the book wasn't nearly as "thought-heavy" as the first 200 pages. We get to see the past unraveled, and secrets revealed. Aside from my complaints above, I actually very much liked the book. It had substance and depth, well-developed characters, and enough subtle humor that I found myself chuckling all throughout.

I must note, though, that the first paragraph of the summary description is a bit misleading - at least, it was for me. What I expected and what I got were two completely different things - not at all a disappointment, just different. That first paragraph makes it sound like it might be a thriller of some sort, but it isn't.

[Vera Neves (Sinfonia dos Livros) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quando comecei a ler esse livro, estava à espera de ser apenas mais um livro de cariz erótico-romântico. Fiquei deveras surpreendida pela positiva.

Will é um psiquiatra de 47 anos, casado e com uma filha chamada Samantha. No entanto, nem sempre foi assim... à 3 anos atrás ele tinha 2 filhos, Luke e Samantha. O filho morreu num acidente de barco e passados 3 anos, Carole, a esposa de Will não consegue fazer amor com ele como antes... Tem de ser sempre de costas, sem contacto visual e a isso acresce o facto de que o orgasmo tem de ser provocado por ela e não por ele. A uma certa altura do livro, Will começa a ter fantasias sexuais com as suas pacientes, sejam elas bonitas, feias, gordas, magras, velhas ou novas. Por isso, contacta o seu "mestre" e amigo com quem tentará perceber o que de facto está a acontecer no seu íntimo psicológico.

Will, tem, também, um irmão gémeo, que é atleta e com quem já não fala à mais de 15 anos, desde o jantar da véspera do seu casamento. O irmão de Will, Mitch, tem uma deficiência a nível facial, o que sempre fez com que sempre que ele olhava para Will, visse como de facto seria se não tivesse aquele problema. A páginas tantas, Will descobre que poderá ter uma filha, fruto de uma relação que teve com uma rapariga na universidade, à 24 anos atrás. Com essa hipótese, Will descobre factos deveras desconcertantes e, de certa forma, graves. Quando se envolve sexualmente com uma paciente, Will descobre que, na altura em que namorava com a mãe da hipotética filha, ela andava também com mais 3 rapazes, o irmão dele incluído. Depois disso, Will descobre que o irmão andava e tinha relações com todas as suas namoradas, inclusive, com a própria esposa, no dia antes do casamento, fazendo-se passar por ele no escuro da noite.

É um livro de leitura compulsiva e posso comprovar isso, uma vez que o li em apenas 3 noites, mesmo estando em viagem. Acho o livro de uma complexidade psicológica muito grande e, exceptuando uma ou outra passagem mais "pesada" a nível de descrição e compreensão, adorei todo o drama e mistério que sempre envolveu as duas personagens principais: Will e Mitch.

Recomendo!!

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

When an author fails to write convincingly in the voice of an opposite-sex protagonist, it is always a deal breaker for me no matter how provocative the plot. But that is certainly not the case here, as more than once I had to remind myself that the author was female (thus the first star). No, the problem here is that Will's behavior and choices fail to ring true. Am I to believe, in addition to a dubiously convoluted (but intriguing, thus the second star) series of events that unfold, an experienced psychologist would choose to act in so unprofessional a manner? OK, maybe so. But if so, that the professionals to whom he so matter-of-factly reveals these actions apparently empathize enough not to report this dude? Um, no.

To be fair, I am not a writer, but have experienced firsthand challenges to professional boundaries, consequences of infidelity, and even parental grief. These are at once extraordinarily formidable and infinitely complex areas of the human psyche to tackle, and I applaud any author for taking them on so boldly. Unfortunately, upon completing Envy, I was left unconvinced that Will et al actually experienced any of these events...although I will concede that lunch with the father would have been more than interesting.