Need a cozy sweatshirt, bookish tote, or mug? Get one at the BookBrowse Merch Store!

Summary and Reviews of Ways and Means by Daniel Lefferts

Ways and Means by Daniel Lefferts

Ways and Means

A Novel

by Daniel Lefferts
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • First Published:
  • Feb 6, 2024, 400 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

A searing debut novel about a striving finance student, the line between ambition and greed, and the disordered politics of our era.

Alistair McCabe comes to New York with a plan. Young, handsome, intelligent, and gay, he hopes to escape his Rust Belt poverty and give his mother a better life by pursuing a career in high finance. But by the spring of 2016, Alistair's plan has come undone: His fantasy banking job has eluded him, he's mired in student debt, and in his desperation he's gone to work for an enigmatic billionaire whose ambitions turn out to be far darker than Alistair could have imagined. By the time Alistair uncovers his employer's secret, his life is in danger and he's forced to go on the run.

Meanwhile, Alistair's paramours, an older couple named Mark and Elijah, must face their own moral and financial dilemmas. Mark, nearing the end of his trust fund, takes a job with his father's mobile-home empire that forces him to confront the unsavory foundations of his family's wealth, while Elijah, a failed painter, throws in his lot with an artist-provocateur whose latest project transforms the country's political chaos into a thing of alluring, amoral beauty. As the nation hurtles toward a breaking point, Alistair, Mark, and Elijah must band together to save one another and themselves.

Propulsive, exuberant, and profoundly observed, Ways and Means is an indelible, clear-eyed investigation of class and ambition, sex and art, and politics and power in twenty-first century America.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

The push and pull between Mark, Elijah and Alistair is part of what makes this book so fascinating. Free spirit Elijah, with a penchant for pushing back against his and Mark's bourgeois lifestyle, is the one who initially suggests inviting a third person into their bed. But it is straight-laced Mark who falls the hardest for Alistair, feeling that in their desire for respectability they are on some level kindred spirits. Elijah can sense Mark's passion for their new lover, which only drives the longtime partners further apart. Alistair's presence uncovers and deepens pre-existing tensions between Mark and Elijah. Ways and Means is not a satire, but it is quietly witty, especially in the dialogue. With its cast of morally gray but profoundly likable characters, this book skewers the worlds of finance and high-profile contemporary art while addressing themes of generational trauma and redemption...continued

Full Review (818 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by Jillian Bell).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Consensual Non-Monogamy in Literature

Recent research suggests about 4-5% of Americans are currently in relationships that break the convention of monogamy. While there is some fluidity to the terms used for different types of non-monogamy, an open relationship often refers to a couple being romantically and emotionally, but not sexually, monogamous, while polyamory often refers to the practice or option of having multiple relationships of a sexual and romantic nature. The common factor in all consensually non-monogamous relationships is that, by definition, everyone involved in the arrangement is aware of and consents to the terms of it.

With the visibility of non-monogamous relationships on the rise, we're also seeing more of them in the literary world. In Ways and ...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Ways and Means, try these:

  • Mood Swings jacket

    Mood Swings

    by Frankie Barnet

    Published 2025

    About this book

    In a pre-apocalyptic world not unlike our own, a young Instagram poet starts an affair with a California billionaire who's promised a time machine that will make everything normal again—whatever that means.

  • The Coin jacket

    The Coin

    by Yasmin Zaher

    Published 2024

    About this book

    A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind

We have 5 read-alikes for Ways and Means, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Jackal's Mistress
    by Chris Bohjalian
    From the New York Times bestselling author of Hour of the Witch, a Civil War love story of a Confederate wife and a wounded Yankee.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Raising Hare
    by Chloe Dalton

    A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, and loss through one woman's friendship with a wild hare.

  • Book Jacket

    Girl Falling
    by Hayley Scrivenor

    The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

  • Book Jacket

    Jane and Dan at the End of the World
    by Colleen Oakley

    Date Night meets Bel Canto in this hilarious tale.

  • Book Jacket

    The Dream Hotel
    by Laila Lalami

    A Read with Jenna pick. A riveting novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

  • Book Jacket

    The Antidote
    by Karen Russell

    A gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town.

Who Said...

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd rather have been talking

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B O a F F T

and be entered to win..