About this title: The author of the iconic "The Good Mother" and the bestselling "While I Was Gone" takes readers deep into the private lives of women with this mesmerizing portrait of two marriages, exposed in all their shame and imperfection and in their obdurate, unyielding love.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. 0307264203 Library copy with mylar cover and library markings. Great service. Fast shipping. Saving trees 1 page at a time! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780307264206ISBN:0307264203
Description: A wonderful copy with some minor edgewear to the cover. Dust Jacket has some edgewear present. -, Hard Cover, Very Good / Very Good. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780307264206ISBN:0307264203
Description: A wonderful copy with some minor edgewear to the cover. Dust Jacket has some edgewear present. A former library book with the usual identifiers in a protective glossy dust jacket covering. -, Hard Cover, Very Good / Very Good. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780307276698ISBN:0307276694
Description: Good. 130-U-Add Books rated "Good" may have some notes, underlining, or highlighting. These books also may contain the previous owner's name, stamp, sticker, or gift inscription, or may be library discards. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"Sue Miller is an author that I love. Her writing is elegant and sophisitcated and every so often she'll turn a phrase that is so lovely that I read it over again a few times just to savor it. That being said, the plot of this book, which I would summarise as being about betrayal, is not very engaging. It is almost an ant- page turner--it meanders through situations over years and seems a bit bloodless, passionless. Which is strange because the book really is all about passion, so it doesn't really make sense. I just never really FELT for the people, they never became flesh and blood for me. Maybe it was a bit too intellectualized?
In any event, I read it with pleasure, but no intensity. I can't say that my life would have been less rich if I had not read it. I will probably forget it in a few months, and yet I have never forgotten While I was Gone, an earlier novel of Ms. Miller's.
I still give this 4 stars, because the writing style is so graceful and nuanced. I just read a review of one of her other books,a nd the reviewer calls her a magician with words, and I would have to agree with that."
"God, this was depressing. Do I really have to summarize? Meri is married to Nate, and they buy a house next to Delia Naughton, who has been married to Senator Tom Naugton for decades. Tom is unfaithful, again and again, and though Delia loves him and continues to spend time with him, they live far apart: him in D.C. and her in New England. Then the senator has a stroke and, rather than live in an assisted living facility, moves back in with Delia.
This is a commentary on marriage, but otherwise it's hard to describe. How do we define love? Is marriage something to celebrate, or is it a burden? Is marriage simply what we make of it? What role does honesty and forgiveness play in a working marriage?
Then there's the ending. Senator Naughton has had a stroke, and Delia has taken him into her home. Meri "babysits" while Delia is out and, as a new mom, brings her baby with her. She nurses and, you guessed it, the senator ogles her breasts while she feeds her baby until, finally, she gives up any pretense of it being about nursing and just straight-up flashes him, gushing breastmilk and all. I was appalled that something natural and lovely became perverted and sexualized. Absolutely appalled. And, of course, Delia discovers them and storms out, finally. At the end, several years later, Meri is thinking back on what happened. Her last words: "I did it out of love." Wha???????
I'll give this two stars, since the book occasionally had me thinking about how I define marriage and parenthood and forgiveness. But all that's left to say is that I'm glad this was a library book and that I didn't spend money on it."
"Sue Miller. The Senator's Wife. New York: Vintage Books, 2008.
It was a good enough story and well enough written.
Page 265: Delia hadn't lived with her husband for many years. He had been a U.S. senator, who cheated on her many times. They had three children together. During their prolonged separation, she learned to be satisfied with her life and independent - she spent part of her year in New England and the rest of the year in her Paris apartment. When her husband, Tom, had a stroke she left Paris to care for him.
The duplex town home was shared with a young couple, Meri and Tom. In a conversation with Meri about being a young mom (Meri had just given birth and was on maternity leave), Delia talks to Meri about the animal, automatic parts of the body working right - pregnancy, labor, birth, and breast feeding - contrasted with the body working but in the opposite way, breaking down in illness and in old age.
" 'The feeling you have of ... bodiliness, of being overwhelmed by it - yours is actually the kindest version of that, I would think ... Because it's just that your body is working so hard. But it's working well - it is working correctly - and that's something to be grateful for.' " "She was aware that part of what she was telling Meri was that she shouldn't complain, that she should be braver than she was; and she was aware that she felt some unkindness toward the younger woman as she did this. But she couldn't help it. Life was hard, hard for everyone. One never stopped having to work at it. Meri was of an age when she ought to know that."
I found that a week after reading this book I was thinking about it. It bothered me that the main character, Meri, betrayed her older friend, Delia, by exposing herself to Delia's husband, who cheated on her most of their married life. The story is much more nuanced than my few sentences, which is why, of course, the characters have stayed with me."
"Loved it, really loved it. I thought Sue Miller had an incredible way of writing flawed, complex characters, and practically every decision her characters make seemed authentic and interesting and true to me. The story focuses on two married women living somewhat parallel lives, sharing a duplex. Meri, newly married to her handsome husband, is slowly adjusting to married life, and Delia, a famous Senator's wife is estranged from her notoriously unfaithful husband and lives a quiet life. The women share a duplex, and Meri is oddly fascinated by Delia's life and marriage to the Senator. The book is a character study, and i liked how Miller didn't shy away from people behaving in sometimes unlikeable but always relatable ways. in writing them that way, she makes all her characters sympathetic, even when they behave in unsympathetically. Delia, noble, beautiful, and private, fascinates brash, independent Meri who isn't quite sure marriage or children is really what she signed up for. I really loved the language, loved the characters and their differences, and loved how Miller refused to give in to cliches of what marriage or family life is like. She turned me into a big fan of her work!"
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