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Envy by Kathryn Harrison

In Envy, Will Moreland is a psychoanalyst, struggling with his own overanalytical obsessions about his life, from the accidental death of his son a few years before, a distant wife since then, a philandering father, and a twin brother (except for a large birthmark on his face) who is a champion swimmer. Most of what Will obsesses about is sex, and it doesn't help that one of his female clients spend her sessions recounting raunchy sexual fantasies. Will attends a college reunion and pesters an ex-lover about a child born out of wedlock that might be his. As Will struggles with all the events and relationships of his life that seem out of his control, his choices only seem to make his life worse. Kathryn Harrison's exploration of the darker side of the male psyche has received mixed reviews. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch review says, "But this book is so funny and so knowing - few female writers are as skillful as Harrison at capturing men at the saddest and most ridiculous extremes of their towel snapping and sexual preening - that it has to be considered another success for one of the most interesting writers of her generation."