The Privileges »

Jonathan Dee is the author of four novels, most recently Palladio. He is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, a frequent contributor to Harper's, and a former senior editor of The Paris Review. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University and the New School.

From the Hardcover edition.

Smart and socially gifted, Adam and Cynthia Morey are perfect for each other. With Adam’s rising career in the world of private equity, a beautiful home in Manhattan, gorgeous children, and plenty of money, they are, by any reasonable standard, successful. But for the Moreys, their future of boundless privilege is not arriving fast enough. As Cynthia begins to drift, Adam is confronted with a choice that will test how much he is willing to risk to ensure his family’s happiness and to recapture the sense that the only acceptable life is one of infinite possibility. The Privileges is an odyssey of a couple touched by fortune, changed by time, and guided above all else by their epic love for each other.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

The Moreys, Cynthia and Adam, have been so disarmingly envisioned by Mr. Dee that they manage to confound expectations…Mr. Dee illustrates why indirection in this new-money morality tale can be so much more effective than a heavy hand. However alarmed by his characters he may claim to be, he's too smart to give the Moreys the one-note menace-to-society treatment. That leaves The Privileges excessively cryptic, but this story is so invitingly told that it's much easier to be drawn in than turned off.