It was Memorial Day weekend and Alice’s beloved dog Maebelle was lost. Alice stayed in New York, desperate to find her dog, while her husband, Peter, drove north to stay with friends in the Berkshires. Relieved to be alone, Alice wasn’t sure if she should continue to marry Peter, but she built a life with him. For his part, Peter is happy to have alone time – he’s tired of the lost dog drama, Alice’s coldness, New York.

As a psychiatrist, he thinks about his patients and especially a particularly attractive woman. As summer unfolds, the struggle increases as Alice and Peter become unfaithful, lonely, and lost. Escape the heat of New York City to visit wealthy friends in the Hamptons, Cape Cod and Berkshires, each continuing to play their part in the lives they’ve chosen together. By the time Labor Day hit, a summer that began with isolation had turned into something entirely different.

Private Means, with its sexy, enthralling storyline, will appeal to fans of Nora Ephron and Meg Wolitzer. LeFavour’s early work is a rarity: a stinging literary fascination with depth and intelligence.

I went into this book looking forward to enjoying it. I love the premise – the empty couple realizes they’ve grown apart and struggle to determine the direction of their relationship – and the cover is impressive. Instead, reading the pages was like a chore and I couldn’t connect with the characters or the story.

Peter and Alice spent three months thinking about how they came to their current marital status. He’s a psychoanalyst delayed by how much she cares about their missing dog than she cares about him. Postponing her career after earning her doctorate and having twin daughters, Alice is frustrated that it’s hard to make that happen now, eighteen years later.

At the risk of revealing spoilers, Peter and Alice whines a lot, drinks a lot, daydreams a lot, breaks their marriage vows, and generally makes you dislike both of them so much that you hope they’re together. because they deserve it. Peter thinks he’s a much better man than he really is, and Alice is too pitiful for you to empathize with her condition. I won’t blame that dog for running away from the scene altogether.

• Private Means

• A Novel
• By: Cree Lefavour