Rating: 
Summary: up, down and all around
Review: This book of sue miller's is around 200 pages too long. Quite a let down after I had read 'While I was Gone', Family Pictures is frequently rambling, getting lost in the thoughts of character after character: like your over-voluble friend, it takes ages to get to the point.
And as a result, you can sometimes guess what's coming before the prose itself manages to blurt it out. At other times she just misses on the immense possibiltiies of some characters: with Liddie, the 'sexy' sister, the eldest daughter, and with Sarah, the talented violinist.Its quite a pity because the book begins so well. Ten pages in the father is watching his son in the parade, realising only then that his two year old child isn't 'normal': that scene is managed so well, so beautifully. But Sue Miller keeps losing that touch over and over again in sections, and sometimes, she simply gets over-sentimental. If she had managed to rein herself in a bit, this would have been a beautiful book.
Rating: 
Summary: very real
Review: This book tells the story more of the family with the autistic child than the autistic child himself. I thought it was wonderful and it really made me feel the impact of having an autistic child in the imediate family.
Rating:
Summary: Family Pictures offers us just what its title says
Review: This is the second novel of Sue Miller's I've read (following "While I Was Gone"), and again I'm amazed at just how REAL her characters seem. Some of the criticisms this book has received focus on the choronology, the way that Miller jumps around from one character the next with little warning. I can see this is true, but I don't find the way she jumps around confusing at all. The book is called Family Pictures, after all ... and that's just what she gives us: different snapshots of family members at various points in their lives. I was touched by the inate love Mack has for his brother; by the way that Nina seems adrift, separate from her family; and by Lainey's desperate need to show the children she loves them. These were the aspects that touched me personally, but there were also specific scenese I found to be amazing. Most notably, the scene in which Mack returns from work on Christmas Eve and goes to church, but slips out before the family discovers him. There was a magic about this scene, and I found myself wishing that they would know he had joined them. Sue Miller writes from the heart, and this novel never bored me, despite its length.
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