Customer Reviews

The Privileges: A Novel

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm giving "The Privileges" five stars because I was caught up in the dynamics within the Morey family - Adam and Cynthia and their two children, April and Jonas - and their relationships with the people and situations outside the family unit. Cynthia and Adam, both from solidly middle-class families, met in college and married upon graduation. They were, from the start, a single unit of two, which quickly expanded with the births of their two children to a unit of four. Both were estranged from their birth families, though Cynthia is reunited with her father on his death-bed. She had a "removed" relationship with her mother. Adam's parents died relatively early in the marriage and he was on "removed" terms with a younger brother, Conrad. Adam did phenomenally well in business in New York and Adam and Cynthia were quickly vaulted to the top-echelon on Wall Street earners - and spenders.

What I found interesting about Jonathan Dee's portrayal of the Moreys and their children was he didn't take the easy way out and make Adam a typical Wall Street-shark, with no morals (though he did do some shady speculating) who cheated on his wife, finally replacing her with a series of "trophy-wives". He could have made Cynthia a typical NY society "social X-ray", whose only interest was in spending Adam's money as fast as she could on houses and clothes and art. Dee gives a nuanced look at Adam and Cynthia. They were NYC achievers who were, at the same time, devoted to each other and to their two children. Even though they spent large amounts of money on themselves, they also established a foundation to help the many disadvantaged in both America and abroad. The two children, particularly April, were more broadly drawn and seemed to disappear often into "heir-dom" with the attendant problems of drugs, promiscuity, and aimless living.

I liked the book and while I didn't "like" all the characters - particularly Cynthia, at times - I was interested in what happened to them. I think you can't ask more than that with a novel.