Private Means by Cree LeFavour

Published by Grove Press on August 11, 2020

Private Means is a novel of first-world problems. An empty nest couple living comfortably in Manhattan complain to themselves about their inability to afford Dolce & Gabbana ankle boot stilettos in camel eel skin (the wife) or a summer home (the husband) because they spend all their income on European cheese, Icelandic yogurt, and grass-fed meat. They consider themselves members of the “intellectual working class” although only one of them works. Now in her 50s, Alice sacrificed a career as a biophysicist to raise children, a choice she regrets. She doesn’t seem to regret the money her husband earns; her frequent dropping of fashion designer brand names makes clear where her husband’s income goes. Her husband Peter is a psychiatrist whose mind is drifting during the endless 45-minute sessions he spends listening to his well-heeled clients complain about their empty lives or the lack of libidinal control that leads to empty remorse.

Both Alice and Peter are tempted to stray, although only Alice — who feels the need to analyze the word “stray” as part of her relentless contemplation of her life — actually carries through with the act, while Peter chooses to relieve his pent-up desire for a flirtatious patient by masturbating on the couch in his office. Fortunately, his patients rarely use the couch.

It has been a couple of years since Peter and Alice had sex, one of the problems they each obsess about but never discuss. Alice feels transformed by her affair until the man who took her to bed meets her again to apologize for seducing her. His apology is condescending and Alice has reason to be upset by his assumption that he took advantage of her. It is nevertheless remarkable, given all the time that Alice devotes to analyzing the encounter and its meaning, that she faults the man for the “depressingly ordinary morality that took over when conformist impulses met disorderly behavior. Couldn’t anything remain unexamined?” Pot, meet kettle.

Peter and Alice live together but occupy different internal worlds. Peter is “so tired of her theatrics — the need to talk when there is nothing to say.” Yes, that’s wearisome after years of marriage, but Peter makes no effort to engage. He shuts down conversations whether or not they are substantive and he makes no effort to shift their direction to something he might find diverting. Peter’s inattention makes Alice feel uninteresting. To be fair, she has little of interest to say and after many years, her neediness and litany of complaints has likely taken its toll on Peter. Alice seems incapable of recognizing that her petty grievances are not Peter’s fault — he’s always snored, she’s simply decided that it should bother her now.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read about two more tedious characters. Even when they have a physical confrontation, they’re too lost in their own heads to really mix it up, and then they each indulge in an eternity of post-brawl self-analysis. When another analyst (a colleague of Peter’s) comes along to dissect the lives of Peter and Alice, her thoughts contribute to the confusion without helping either of them resolve their issues. By the end, Private Means had me wondering whether the unexamined life is not only worth living, but preferable to the self-inflicted misery of unremitting examination.

By virtue of a contrived coincidence, Peter encounters the man who shagged his wife. That contrivance at least created the possibility for something interesting to happen. Sadly, the moment passes without literary consequence. Alice’s desire to compare everything to the murmuration of starlings is, if not contrived, at least forced. Apart from an affair subplot that goes nowhere, the main plot driver seems to be a lost dog, but that thread ties up in way that had me making “what was that all about?” head scratches.

Writers are often admonished to show, not tell. In most fiction, a certain degree of exposition is inevitable and, in many cases, necessary. We don’t necessarily know what a character is thinking unless the character reveals his or her thoughts. Still, interior monologs dominate Private Means to such an extent that they become tiresome. When no thought goes unanalyzed, my wish is to tell the characters to stop thinking so much and to start living. Maybe that’s the point, but making the reader capture the point only after enduring a wearying series of thought balloons risks losing the reader’s effort.

Notwithstanding the negative tone of this review, a reader might find some value in Private Lives. Readers might see themselves in the main characters, as they exemplify the men from Mars and women from Venus that are standard fare for chroniclers of domestic drama. The couple’s musings are occasionally noteworthy, as when they mock self-important food (a natural subject for a cookbook-writer-turned-novelist). Other food references just fill the space between thoughts, and there isn’t much space to fill. There were times when I wanted to close the book and move on to something livelier, but Cree LeFavour’s fluid prose helped me endure. Fortunately, the story and my attention span ran out of gas at the same time.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS