Advance Praise for Private Means : "LeFavour's first novel is a tart comedy of manners that distills the wandering spirit of summer."-- Chloe Schama, Vogue "[A] lifelike, charming, and witty portrayal of mostly-well mannered marriage doldrums." -- Booklist "LeFavour, author of the memoir Lights On, Rats Out , is an award-winning cookbook writer, but don't expect a foodie novel. Fans of Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Fleishman Is in Trouble or Ann Beattie's short stories will enjoy this wry, sophisticated, and intelligent rendering of modern, privileged city life."-- Library Journal , starred review "[An] empathetic and detailed portrait of a marriage" -- Kirkus " Private Means is a lacerating, laser-eyed look at love in its countless manifestations. If I tell you it's a story of devotion, betrayal, rage, desire, redemption, and the search for a lost dog, that's only a partial account of the infinitely complex, exquisitely painful surgery Cree LeFavour performs on the human desire to love and be loved." -- Michael Cunningham "This feels like an Ian McEwan novel. Served on a bed of Cheever.

I can't offer higher praise than that. But written by a woman. Which is even better." --Elizabeth Gilbert Praise for Lights On, Rats Out : "A riveting account of a "particular kind of crazy". This is a courageous and unsettling memoir, infused with humor as well as pain, and marked throughout by a survivor's wry insight." --Daphne Merkin, New York Times Book Review "Shockingly intimate." -- People Magazine "This gritty account of a woman's struggle with self-abuse describes nearly gothic suffering. It is also a love story about a dedicated and gifted analyst and his difficult but equally gifted patient.

Courageous and unsettling, LeFavour's memoir is infused with humor and wry insight as well as pain." -- New York Times "Eloquent, irreverent, graphically precise." -- Vulture "Cree LeFavour uses the force of her blisteringly stark, mesmerizingly self-aware prose to not only unearth her own demons, but also equip the reader with the language to articulate our own as well." -- Harper's Bazaar.com.