Having Everything [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

John L'Heureux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1999

Philip Tate is a man who has everything -- youth, looks, a beautiful wife and perfect family, a distinguished deanship at Harvard. Having Everything is the story of a nighttime drive that leads Philip to jeopardize it all for a moment's flirtation with the forbidden. For on that drive he will collide with the Kizers -- beautiful, troubled Dixie and brilliant, kinky Hal. By stepping, without knocking, into the Kizers' house and into the midst of their sad marriage, Philip sets in motion the near ruin -- and perhaps the salvation -- of his entire world. Fierce, ironic, and beautifully told, Having Everything reminds us that sometimes -- in marriage, and in life -- having everything is not enough. "A master of understated, ominous moments in a marriage in which not asking a question can be more disastrous than asking it.... Sharp, moving, poignant." -- Lev Raphael, The Washington Post Book World; "John L'Heureux is perhaps today's most frightening novelist because his characters, for all their strange behavior, are not freaks or misfits. They are the people we see and know.... Having Everything is an unforgettable exploration of what it means to become fully human." -- Richard Wakefield, The Seattle Times; "A master of spoof and irony.... As the book moves forward to a conclusion that readers will sense is going to be catastrophic, it is impossible to stop turning its pages." -- Carol Herman, The Washington Times

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Had Diogenes lived today, instead of searching for an honest man, he would have been swinging his lantern in hopes of hitting a well-balanced psychiatrist. Or so fiction would generally have one believe. Psychiatrists in novels generally fall into one of two categories: they are either cold, insensitive, and all-around clueless when it comes to their nearest and dearest (see Fear of Flying's Benjamin Wing) or they are wackier than their patients--often in dark and twisted ways. Philip Tate, the hero of John L'Heureux's Having Everything, belongs to this second group. Married to a beautiful woman, the father of two terrific children, and recently appointed to a prestigious position at Harvard Medical School, Tate would seem to have an ideal existence. Too ideal, of course, or there'd be nothing to write a novel about:

They had everything, their kids and their lives and their health, and they were good-looking, with enough money, and they loved one another--didn't they?--and yet they were wrecking it, somehow, in spite of themselves.

Tate's wife, Maggie, it seems, is an alcoholic. And Tate himself struggles with the compulsion to break into stranger's houses; one night, he goes too far, breaking into a colleague's house with consequences that will haunt him through the rest of the novel. In Having Everything, L'Heureux suggests that success is only skin deep, and demonstrates how difficult it really is to have it all. --Margaret Prior --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Boston psychiatrists and their loved ones nearly wreck one another's privileged lives in L'Heureux's witty but labored 14th novel. Philip Tate, 45, has just been appointed a prestigious Chair in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School. At first blush, Tate seems to have it all: he is a good-looking man of professional renown with a beautiful, urbane wife, Maggie, and two handsome, serious, over-achieving adult children, Cole and Emma. But it doesn't take long to see what's wrong with this picture: Maggie is frigid, unfulfilled and an alcoholic; passion and sympathy between her and Philip have all but disintegrated. Moreover, Philip has rediscovered his adolescent predilection for breaking into people's houses. When, after a disastrous department dinner, Philip sneaks into the sprawling home of Hal Kizer, an arrogant young psychiatrist with a very public interest in sex, and his gorgeous, unstable wife, Dixie, he sets off a calamitous set of events. Drunk and semiconscious, Dixie becomes enraptured with Philip's gentle manner, and they begin an affair. Meanwhile, Maggie is trying to finish the Ph.D. in English she abandoned to help Philip through medical school. Her bafflement and depression over new-style literary theory exacerbate her alcoholism and resentment. Philip attempts to restore balance by calling upon his esteemed sobriety and resolve. L'Heureux (The Handmaid of Desire) observes Philip and Maggie well enough, but neither the central couple, their offspring, nor their friends ever develop genuinely individuating inner lives. Some characters find redemption in art, one meets a cruel end, and others continue to battle expectations and propriety, armed with selective self-appraisals, therapy and good intentions. Their ineffectual attempts to escape their flaws fail to add momentum to this heavily ironic chronicle of professional success, inward misery, and middle-aged sexual guilt. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 229 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr; 1st edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871137631
• ASIN: B000VYV2ES
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,544,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Together falls apart, December 14, 1999

By 

Cityview (Des Moines, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Having Everything (Hardcover)

It's almost become a cliché, the story of the suburban man who has it all, but upon closer examination, has nothing. Such is the premise of "Having Everything," by John L'Heureux, a relaxed storyteller who never lets his tale wilt into predictable boredom. At 45, Philip Tate has just received a prestigious chair position in the psychology department at Harvard. Not-so-furtive whispers at university dinner parties say he's next in line to be dean. And his wife, what a beauty. Sure, she drinks too much, and she's got a stash in her shoe closet that would rival the stock of most pharmaceutical salesmen. But she's a gorgeous blonde and has produced two gorgeous children, who are sprouting their own successful careers. Although he's a psychiatric genius who specializes in manic depression, Philip can't seem to figure out what's wrong with his deathly depressed wife. She alternately loves and hates him. He can only stand by and watch her self-destruct. Such shattering revelations reawaken an old, dangerous habit in Philip. As a boy, he liked breaking in to his neighbors' houses. He never stole anything; he just liked the thrill and naughtiness of the deed. As a man - a man with seemingly everything - he goes thrill-seeking once again. What he finds is that his beautiful and smart friends are just as messed up as he and his family. L'Heureux is a subtle, character-driven writer in a time when the phrase "over-the-top" describes most of contemporary fiction. "Having Everything" is a deliberate read, not sexy but solid. L'Heureux, a college professor himself, tells these ironic tales with an insider's wit. Reading the book is a good reminder that a simple story is good enough; we needn't be subjected to a "tour de force" to be entertained.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Compulsively readable, January 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Having Everything (Paperback)

Nothing is more fun than reading about other's problems and neuroses. Schaudenfreude aside, the characters here have great depth and the barbs they trade are worth the price of admission. L'Heureux's character gives new meaning to the phrase, "don't judge a book by its cover."

Unfortunately, the conclusion felt too neat -- too forced, particularly in the face of all of the events that "went down" throughout the course of the book......

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Having Everything, February 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Having Everything (Hardcover)

What a find this novel turned out to be. I have read and admired several of L'Heureux's novels and short story collections. The prose is written with a poet's precision and the characters are developed with a minimum of words. I highly recommend this novel to anyone, particularly those readers who are tired of 700 page novels that go nowhere.