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Envy

A Novel

By Kathryn Harrison

(3)

| Paperback | 9780812973761

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Book Description

"Kathryn Harrison is a wonderful writer…Spellbinding."
- The New York Times Book Review

"A juicy story of psychosexual suspence"
- The Wall Street Journal

"Shockingly complex and compulsively readable."
- O, The Oprah Magazine

"[Envy] has to be considered another succcess for one of the most interesting writers of her generation."
- St. Louis Post Dispatch

"Complex and disturbing… Envy is a masterfully constructed, insightful novel of psychosexual suspense that explores the destructive power of loss, betrayal, guilt and envy…an engaging, beautifully written story."
- The Boston Globe

“A compelling, beautifully written, well-constructed look at family problems that initially might seem insurmountable….Harrison is a truly gifted writer.”
- Deseret Morning News

"The characters, their conflicts and their conversations do seem real, and their story, however improbable, will keep you turning the pages."
- Newsday

“Her ability to train an unflinching eye on some of the more frightening aspects of eroticism and the human psyche, combined with her uncommon wisdom, distinguishes her as one of the finest and most fearless storytellers writing today.”
–BookForum

“Envy is full of Harrison’s astute, often mordant powers of physical and psychological observation…the fact is that Kathryn Harrison is one of our more earnestly impassioned and intellectually engaging players. Long may she run.”
–Elle magazine

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.

From the Hardcover edition.

Critics

A handful of lust

Envy by Kathryn Harrison 291pp, Fourth Estate, £16.99 The first time I read this book I was transfixed, gulping it down, desperate to get to the end and find out how the spiralling misery of Kathryn Harrison's characters would be resolved. From the v ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

The bother of brothers

Envy by Kathryn Harrison Fourth Estate £17.99, pp301 Kathryn Harrison's third novel is a fictional account of the dysfunctional American family. While The Kiss, the acclaimed memoir that highlighted her exhibitionist nature, flirted with incestuous l ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

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1 Review

1 person find this helpful

Complex, multi-layered, fascinating novel

From an interview with the author:
"The novel began as an exploration of grief, from the point of view of a mother who had lost her child. I think writers often use fiction to explore what frightens them, and I can't imagine anything more annihilating than the death of a child. In fact, it was ... (continue)

From an interview with the author:
"The novel began as an exploration of grief, from the point of view of a mother who had lost her child. I think writers often use fiction to explore what frightens them, and I can't imagine anything more annihilating than the death of a child. In fact, it was impossible for me to get close enough to the mother's perspective, so I ended up trying on the father's role. I gave Will, the father, a twin because I've always found identical twins - the idea of another you - sinister in its implicit threat to identity, and from that point, the book accrued subplots, by means of an unconscious process I don't understand clearly enough to explain."

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annemarie said on Oct 6, 2006 | Add your feedback