Mickey Hargrove

Mickey Hargrove is the third person narrator of "Private Lies." He is probably about forty years old, a self-described "grouchy, preulcerous, balding bore." A real estate salesman in bad economic times, Mickey is married to Tina, a nurse, with whom he has two children. As a teenager, Mickey got his girlfriend Donna pregnant. She gave up the baby for adoption. Although they later married, their marriage only lasted three years, as it was tainted by the memory of the lost baby. Now, eighteen years later, Mickey is obsessed with finding his daughter.

Mickey lacks confidence in his career; he is uncomfortable appraising houses and looking into private spaces. He also is uncertain about his life and wonders how his lost daughter would view him. "If she could appraise his life, as he would a house," Mason writes, "she might find its dimensions too narrow, its ceilings too...