While I Was Gone

Rating:
Summary: Ever wonder?
Review: Ever wonder what your life might be like if you'd made a different choice, in career, mate, etc? Ever feel as if you've missed out on something? This is what Jo Becker, the main character had to be thinking in WHILE I WAS GONE. Then one day, something does happen. An old friend from years ago walks into the place where she works and things get turned upsidedown. I was really struck by the excellent writing in this novel--the beauty of it reminded me at times of McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood" thought the subject matter was completely different. If you're looking for a well crafted book, this is one to try.

Rating:
Summary: Moving and accurate...
Review: Here is Joe Becker, a middle aged veterinarian who by all appearances seems to be content with her coastal life and her minister husband. Her children are all grown up and out of the house and one day Jo wakes as if from a dream. She is flooded with memories and yearnings of and for an idealistic youth that is shattered by the death of a close friend.

Coincidentally, Eli Mayhew, who was romantically involved with Joe's friend, shows up in her hometown. Suddenly Jo is confronted with a past that demands closure and an attraction to Eli that she cannot ignore.

This is a powerful read that accurately portrays the closeness and simultaneous distance in marriage. This book is for anyone who has ever asked themselves "Where did the years go? What became of the person I was?"


Rating:
Summary: HANGS TOGETHER ALL THE WAY THROUGH
Review: I READ A LOT--LOTS OF VARIETY---LATELY I HAVE BEEN DISAPPOINTED WITH ENDINGS OF BOOKS...THEY START OFF GREAT ONLY TO GET WEAKER AND UNSATISFYING AT THE END. WHILE I WAS GONE TAKES YOU ON A READERS VACATION UNTIL THE LAST PAGE. I DISAGREE WITH THE READER THAT SAID THE CHARACTERS WERE NOT DEVELOPED...ACTUALLY SHE WAS NOT A READER..BUT ONLY LISTENED TO THE TAPE...THE CHARACTERS WERE HIGHLY DEVELOPED AND JO'S RELATIONSHIP WITH HER HUSBAND WAS QUITE BELEIVABLE...I AM AT THE AGE WHERE MY CHILDREN ARE GETTING "OUT OF THE NEST" SO I COULD RELATE TO JO'S FEELINGS. THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD PHILOSOPHY IN THIS NOVEL....THE WONDERFUL SERMON DANIEL GIVES...THE IDEA THAT PEOPLE HAVE "TO TELL"....THE REVELATIONS ABOUT WHAT KEEPING SECRETS CAN DO TO PEOPLE AND THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM....THIS BOOK IS A WINNER...AND I WAS REALLY GETTING TIRED OF OPHRAH'S CHOICES BUT I HAD FORGOTTEN TO BRING THE BOOK I WAS READING (A GOOD MYSTERY.... JUDAS CHILD BY O'CONNELL...SO I BOUGHT WHILE I WAS GONE IN THE MEMPHIS AIRPORT...

Rating:
Summary: While I Was Gone by Sue Miller
Review: I read this book over a two day span - I couldn't put it down. The clean writing in this book explained feelings so obscure in such a normal way that anyone could have related. I loved the main character the most - and her loving husband. This book makes me look at my husband differently and has given me the foresight to appreciate life and what it hands me. The main character, Jo, has so much to be thankful for - yet she lets herself be taken back in history to another time and life she led, and it gets her in trouble. This book gives you the chance to think about things in a new way, a way that might not have even come up before. I like the captivating way Sue Miller writes and look forward to reading another one of her books.

Rating:
Summary: While I Was Gone
Review: If you are looking for a book you can't put down THIS IS IT! Sue Miller draws you in with her excellent writing and keeps you hooked with irresistable characters. This book takes unexpected turns and ends in a way you never would have thought. In the story Jo Becker has a tainted past. Even if you can't relate to the wild time in her life I think we have all wondered occasionally where our lives would be if we had made different choices. She had the gutts to challenge the boundaries surrounding her. She did what all of us wants to do- escape. And she learns more about herself than ever before, ironicly when she is pretending to be someone else. This book makes you think about who you are and how got to be the person you are. It's a book to read again and again!

Rating:
Summary: One more review
Review: It has been awhile since I read this book, but it is one which I will not forget. I,too am a 50 something woman who remembers the 60's, a time like no other, with Womens'Lib, the Birth Control Pill, Hippies, Civil Rights, Assassinations, and our boyfriends going off to fight a war we did not agree with. There were the folks that were involved and wanted to make a difference, and there were the hangers'on. Jo wasn't happy in her marriage so she ran off and lived the life of her newly adopted roomates/family and tried to assimilate their lifestyle. I remember Dana giving her little gifts and wanted to be like Jo, (wasn't it her cutting her hair that made Eli crazy?)but I did not sense any closeness other than they lived in the same house. There was a sense of order though that Jo seemed to enjoy.

After Dana's death, Jo became a Vet, which to me means she would rather be with animals than people. I did not see her minister husband as cold; on the contrary, I think he was very loving, enough to allow Jo the space she felt she needed both from him and her family. Jo seemed to use her business as a way to get out of doing family oriented things, including not even going to her husband's church services!
Then along comes a man from her past when she was living a lie with an assumed name, and starts having "feelings" for him. Maybe she was in love with him back then, although she didn't really know him that well. And when she decides to meet him "for a drink" in a hotel in another town, she was not prepared for what he told her. Her husband was quite a man for not throwing her out for her behaviour! Then she wonders if she should turn Eli in!
This story is so incredibly rich, I had to read it twice to see if I had missed anything! Jo had been self-absorbed all her life and still she could not figure out why she felt like an observer! She did everything she wanted for herself but found excuses even for the people she should have been able to show love the most. I have met women like Jo and they can never figure out how to feel love even when it knocks them over.

Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining Read, But Cheaply Melodramatic
Review: Jo has a happy, secure life with her loving minister husband,Daniel, in a picturesque New England town. One day Eli Mayhew moves to town. Jo knew Eli in the Sixties when they lived in a commune in Cambridge with several other people. Jo joined the commune after running away from her first short-lived marriage. The commune exists happily, until Dana, it's brightest member is visciously murdered, the murder never solved. The tragic results of what happens when Eli meets Jo again after all these years is the 'stuff' of this book. But this murder mystery in the guise of a contemporary woman's novel is cheaply melodramatic and Jo is a very unlikeable, self-centered character, although the portrayal of family life is excellent, especially the depiction of Jo and her difficult twenty-something daughter, Cass. If I want to read outstanding murder mysteries I'll stick with authors like Ruth Rendell. She does this sort of thing so much better.

Rating:
Summary: A bit disappointing....
Review: Not Sue Miller's best work, in my opinion. The Good Mother is much better and richer. In While I was Gone, Jo meets a man from her past with connections to an old unsolved murder. The book raises some interesting questions however. What secrets are being harbored by people you know? What lines will they cross?Who has the capacity for evil? Do you ever *really* know another person? Jo's character was hard to get to know and her husband was TOTALLY unbelieveable!

Rating:
Summary: While I Was Gone by Sue Miller
Review: This book arrives nowhere, after an interesting start. I felt like most of the narrative led nowhere eventually. Some of the twist and turns were clumsily devised and lacked impact. The characters are one-dimensional and the reader comes to expect exactly what they ended up doing. There are no unexpected surprises and no deep connections with any one. Once you finish the book, you will never think about it again and feel like you've wasted your time reading all that nonsense.

Rating:
Summary: A study in self-indulgence
Review: This is a very well written book but hard to like, mainly because the main character, Jo, is very unlikeable. She was so selfish and so dishonest with herself that I simply couldn't empathise.

Jo is a veterinarian. She is married to a minister, has three grown daughters and lives a quiet life in a small Massachusetts community. When she was in her early twenties and married to a different man, she experienced some sort of crisis and took off on everybody. She ended up in Cambridge, where she lived in a big house with a group of students. This one-year hiatus from reality was precious and meant the world to her. Unfortunately, that unbelievable year came crashing when one of the roommates, her best friend Dana, was killed in mysterious circumstances.

Fast forward to the present. Because of one of those silly coincidences that life brings us, one of Jo's old roommates moves into her town, almost 30 years later. This was like stirring some long-settled sediment at the bottom of a pool. Jo experienced a mixture of dread and appeal, maybe because she was transported to that time, back in her 20s, where she felt free and unencumbered. Unfortunately, she allowed herself to be dragged by her emotions (which is what she had done her entire life), and in the process managed to alienate everyone, most importantly her husband.

I realized early on how things were going to turn out. The big question, the whodunit, became crystal clear soon. That disappointed me a little, but I forgave the author. After all, this is not a mystery novel. The main theme is not who killed Dana, but what a mess Jo has made of her life and her relationships.

A couple of things I liked:

This one because it rings true:

"Having children teaches you, I think that love can survive your being despised in every aspect of yourself. That you need not collapse when the shriek comes: Don't you get it? I hate you! But you do need to get it. You do need to understand and accept being hated. I think this is one of the greatest gifts children can give you, as long as it doesn't last".

This one because it reflects what a sorry human being Jo is:

"But then he returned and our life went on. Three days gone. A week. I measured the time in the faint waning of my consciousness of my misery, and wondered if this would one day be enough: simply not to be consciously miserable anymore".