Review
Envy deals with the
subject of brotherly betrayal. As the
reviewer for The New York Observer puts it,
'
Envy touches the nerve that drives
Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Will and his
cold-blooded fish of a brother.' The same
reviewer goes on to ponder 'The question is:
Do we accept all this [from Harrison]
because, after 10 psyche-shattering books,
[she] has debauched us by now? Or is it
because we recognize that she's
communicating something important?'
The Washington Post reviewer would reply to
this musing with a resounding and definite
no, saying, "Writers and critics who
complain of the shrinking audience for
literary fiction argue -- validly -- that
huge advances...
Beyond the Book
Can a book
have substantial sexual content
and still be considered
literary? When it's written by
Kathryn Harrison, some say the
answer is yes, others say not on
your life! She is the author of
7 novels and 5 non-fiction
books, including her memoirs,
The Kiss (1997), in which
she describes her four year
affair with her estranged father
which began when she was 20, and
The Mother Knot (2004),
in which she goes back to her
childhood with a dysfunctional
mother and grandmother, and
absent father. Her first novel,
Thicker Than...
