Sex, family and betrayal--lots and lots of betrayal--run through this novel that centers on a 40-something married New Yorker who encounters an old flame at a college reunion.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Juicy and intelligent.
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Outstanding
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New York Observer Daniel Asa Rose
After reading it, I felt guilty and chastened both, as though I'd not only cheated on my wife but gotten my comeuppance, too. Mind what beach you read this on. [18 July 2005, pg. 21]
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Outstanding
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Boston Globe Diane White
Envy is a masterfully constructed, insightful novel of psychosexual suspense that explores the destructive power of loss, betrayal, guilt, and envy.
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Outstanding
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Boston Globe Sandra Shea
An engaging, beautifully written story.
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Outstanding
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Chicago Sun-Times Sally Duros
[In Envy] 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.
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Favorable
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Salon Amy Reiter
Unusually potent, repellent and compelling at the same time.
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Favorable
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Kirkus Reviews
Harrison's... measured, matter-of-fact prose gives each perverse twist of her pulpish plot a nasty kick.
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Favorable
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Library Journal Beth E. Anderson
Compulsively readable and deeply disturbing. [15 June 2005, p. 58]
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Favorable
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Chicago Tribune Art Winslow
Where Oedipus meets Freud, that's where you'll find Harrison. [10 July 2005, pg. 4]
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Emily Nussbaum
[Envy] is like one of those souvenir 1950's pens that tilt upside down to strip an innocent cheesecake model to her pornographic double, and Harrison's witty, lucid, poetic sentences do carry us quite a long way through passages rife with the kind of ickiness bound to alienate some readers and rivet others.
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times Jane Ciabattari
[Harrison's] sixth novel mixes incest, obsession, family secrets and betrayal into a toxic quagmire. [10 July 2005, pg. R12]
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Mixed
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Village Voice Joy Press
[A] well-written but deeply frustrating novel.
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Harrison has some admirably creepy plot twists up her sleeve -- and some extremely nasty sex scenes -- though she fails to knit them together convincingly.
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Mixed
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San Francisco Chronicle Jennie Yabroff
Envy is a claustrophobic, overheated book.
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Unfavorable
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Washington Post Charles Taylor
A smugness infects Envy right down to its we're-stronger-for-having-passed-through-the-pain finale.
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