While I Was Gone

Rating:
Summary: Forgive and forget?
Review: This is the first Sue Miller book I read. I am intrigied by the idea that someone can totally lie about her past, completely change her identity, leave her first husband, marry a great guy, have three pretty good kids, almost have an affair with a murderer and get off totally scott free, with no retribution to pay. Her husband gives her a hard time for a while and even throws a tomato at her (though he misses her on purpose), but in the end he forgives her. Even her mother forgives her for leaving her first husband and disappering for 2 years. Doesn't she have any guilt or regret for all her deceit? She had hardly done one honest thing in her life. Why doesn't she have to pay a price for that? The only thing she was ever honest about is that she prefers animals to most people. She is obviously more comfortable with animals because she doesn't need to lie to them.

One thing I really did like about this book is the interview with the author and the discussion questions in the back of the book. I enjoy learning what the author had in mind when they write a book. This helped to clarify a few details for me. Otherwise, I thought the ending was just a little too neat and tidy for me. She should have to suffered a little bit more for her dishonesty.

Rating:
Summary: A Compelling, Multi-Layered Story
Review: Jo Becker has settled into a quiet life in the country with her minister husband, her veterinary practice, a few dogs, and an empty nest. When a man from her past moves to town, she becomes obsessed with her past life, and the tragic event which brought that chapter of her life to a close.

The many layers to this book make it quite complex, and Miller pulls it off beautifully. She builds the tension while moving the story along at a very deliberate, at times excruciating pace.

This is ultimately a story of forgiveness, and not one you will easily forget.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling Book About Secrets & Family Life
Review: There were so many themes in this book -- Jo's relationship with her husband, and their life together... both busy professionals, but making it a priority to spend quiet time together, with a day alone together once a week, walking the dogs each night... cherished rituals. Then there is her role both as a mother and a daughter, and having secrets in a family. How much does one tell one's own children about a life previous to them? Then there is what the book is really about -- a blast from the past -- which jolts everything in present day life... bringing back memories of a time in Jo's life when she was running away/spending time away from her "real life" to sort it out...and friendships formed there, and how that came to a bad end... and now, years later, finding herself very attracted to this man from her past. We again find the secret theme, and I found myself asking if anyone is better off for telling their secret? Certainly not those who were told the 'secrets.' I found this book to be very compelling, particularly because of all the various themes, and because of Jo, a very interesting and human character. This book is very intelligently written. It was my first Sue Miller book, and I look forward to reading more.

Rating:
Summary: A very introspective book
Review: This book is a tale of a woman in midlife. You hear the thoughts in her head and are amazed they are not dissimilar to your own. She has moments that freeze in time, where she recalls past events, suddenly and very vividly. Events that though are not forgotten, but have gotten rusty due to lack of use.

With this reminiscing she recalls her former self and tries to understand the people and events in her past. Some were very disturbing. Most are guilded with the innocence of youth.

The author sets the stage with the main character Jo, having an "epiphany" of sorts, a freeze frame that another turning point in her life is being reached. She builds for the reader the story of Jo's life with the day to day details. When you are reading this book, you are Jo, if only for a moment.

In this contented recently empty nest life, Jo and her husband a minister she does not share a faith with, go about their normal lives with no sense of "what's next". Only recently has the last of their 3 daughters moved out and they are reinventing their schedule and getting to know one another as a couple again.

Due to a connection provided by her daughter Sadie, Jo runs into a former friend of her counter-culture life in her early 20s. Back when they shared a communal house one of their housemates was murdered. The author builds through Jo's recollecting how she remembers that life and it's initial innocence. It also shows Jo's confused sense of self at that time.

Jo's relationship to her past is soon caught up in her association with this man. This sets up events that nearly destroy her marriage. This relationship provides her an opportunity to explore and revisit the person she once was. She examines her motivation and questions it as well. It is a very good portrait of some of the questions one asks oneselves when faced with hard issues. Most of us would like to think we know the answers. Most of us find out, we have no clue.

Without giving away the twist of the story, I have to say, the author had my heart pounding when I realized what a dialogue was unfolding into. It was masterfully handled and ironically later on was paralleled with one conversation Jo had with her mother.

This book gets into your head and you understand many of Jo's feelings observations and day to day life. You get to understand how she thinks. She is a closed person and you see this in her thoughts, which are rarely revealed to the characters around her. Her relationship to her coworkers, husband and daughters are well defined. As a mother you can see the dynamic that unfolds, when there is family competition between childen. The author handles this well.

I found this book facinating and highly recommend it.

The only critique I would make is to the author. While Jo and her husband are highly educated people, I'm not sure some of the "vocabulary" is realistic for the characters. I felt sometimes the author dipped into her own background with linguistics versus the characters. This happened only a few times, but it seemed out of character at the time.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed at Best
Review: I found much of this book compelling and was eager to keep reading. There is much here to enjoy. Ultimately, however, I found the book disappointing. I saw where the book was going long before it got there. I found the main character (and narrator) frustrating in her lack of insight and her poor judgment. Unlike "The Good Mother" where it was easy to see how the main character got into the predicament she ended up in, Jo's predicament seemed very avoidable.

While I was reading this book, a woman came up to me and asked me how I liked it. It seems that a friend of hers was finding it difficult to get into. That wasn't exactly my reaction, although very early on it's hard to figure out where the book is going.

All in all, I'd say the book is worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Hard to get into the story
Review: I too am ambivalent about this book. At times it was interesting but the author added way too many extraneous details which end up making the story a patchwork quilt. I think that the author could have and SHOULD have spent more time developing the characters with whom Jo (the main character) comes in contact with. I'm a Gen X-er so maybe I can't understand middle aged angst, but this adult woman appears to be more self-centered than a teenager. I will say that Miller does a good job at creating a character that one can neither hate nor love -- but the character is also not one who can consistently hold the reader's interest. Be prepared to read a good chapter, then a random chapter, then a good chapter, then a random chapter...

Rating:
Summary: Emotionally realistic and satisfying reading
Review: "While I Was Gone" is told by a middle-aged woman named Jo Becker, a veterinarian, happily married wife, and mother of three daughters who lives outside of Boston. The wife of an old housemate (Eli) brings their dog to her office, and this triggers Jo's memories of her time after college when she was running from her first marriage. She had assumed a new identity and lived in a group house in Boston, where she became close with her housemates, one of whom she finds murdered in their living room when she gets home from cocktail waitressing one day. The book flashes back to tell the story of her time in the group house and then returns to her married life, where she meets Eli again and find herself attracted to him. In all the lives Jo has lived (first marriage, recovering in the group home, second marriage, and even childhood), she keeps secrets from those she loves, sometimes without realizing it. The book is essentially about how those secrets affect her and her life.

Within the first ten pages of this book, I thought "Oo, I'm going to enjoy this book," and oh how I did. Miller writes of the emotional and psychological lives of her characters more realistically than any author I know. I savored the many details that conveyed who Jo was, how she reacted to others, and why she behaved as she did. Despite getting to know Jo as a stable, mature woman, I completely understood her earlier experience of wanting to take big risks and reinvent herself when she realizes she has been making choices to please others, at the cost of not knowing herself. We learn about Jo's relationship with her children, now young adults, and she captures the tension Jo feels in trying to be a loving mother while also conveying her respect for their independence. When Jo and her husband Daniel have a falling out, I fully understood her portrayal of the emotional experience of being polite with one another but looking for tiny clues about how he is feeling, what he is expecting. At the end, there is a scene with her elderly mother that brings together the theme of keeping secrets and it completed my understanding of Jo. It was a very satisfying experience.

In some ways, this is a narrow book in that it delves into the small life of one woman; those who like stories with a lot of action and many interesting characters might not like this book. The strength of this book is the depth with which it explores and explains the emotional life of that woman. If you like detailed, psychologically real stories, you will like this book. I couldn't have enjoyed it more.

Rating:
Summary: My first time reading Sue Miller
Review: I chose this book because it was the Oprah selection for May 2000. I had "stumbled" upon it numerous times before it was selected while I was searching for selections for my Reading group. I almost selected it for the group BUT something kept telling me don't. I was not sure why at the time...because it does seem like she has a tremendous following...I was happy when Oprah picked the book because I knew then at least I would be reading one of her selections. Although so many of the reviews were positive ones on this book...I have to be honest and tell you I really did not enjoy it....I struggled getting through it, and am really at a loss to say why. It just seems the book did not motivate me or call out to me saying "READ ME". I guess it came down to the fact that I really didn't care about the central characters....I guess Jo and me are world's apart and I never felt "connected" to her at any one point in her life. This made it really difficult for me to empathize with her. Daniel was my favorite character...although a little too perfect. The "reuinion" with Eli was a realistic storyline...but I think was transitioned poorly into her booking a room at the Ritz with thoughts of a one night affair. The occurences after that night, (and I will not list them here for people who have not read it) really did not evolve into the storyline it should have)

I never really "got" the descriptions and relationships with her children...The visual I had in my mind was very choppy and of miserably spoiled and disconnected from the family type of kids....strange considering the type of family they came from.

I gave this book 3 stars because of a few pages relating to grief and how it encompasses ones life....This prose, in my humble opinion was the best in the entire book, although sad and difficult for me to read...she was right on the money!

I will probably try another one of her selections....I don't give up on a popular author that easily. Thanks!

Rating:
Summary: Eventually Interesting
Review: I found this book difficult to read. It took me several tries to get far enough into it that I was motivated to keep going (I hate to leave a book unfinished). Once the story developed and her past life started to emerge I was hooked and found finishing the book a breeze. My advice: push on, it will get interesting eventually.

Rating:
Summary: The Big Chill Revisited
Review: This book has all the elements of a made-for-TV movie: an east coast, middle class while girl leaves career and husband for a subsistance communal life in a Boston suburb (the '60's). Now grown up, she's married and lives in a cozy rural village in Maine with her white, protestant minister husband (the '90's). An old lover from her communal days appears on the scene and now she has to reconcile her sordid past with her present comfortable, mainstream lifestyle: the very life she rebelled against and tried to run from 30 years previous. A number of intriguing themes emerge (death: murder, disease, euthanasia), but Miller fails to develop them beyond Jo's personal experience and they are therefore unsubstantial to the rest of us. I suspect this is a story that many self-absorbed baby-boomers find appealing. I do not. I think this story is sappy and paltry: reminiscent of "The Big Chill". It's as if Miller is pandering to TV network producers for a lucrative movie deal. She writes well, she should select better material.