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The World Below: A Novel by Sue Miller
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The World Below: A Novel (original 2001; edition 2005)

by Sue Miller

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From the author of While I Was Gone, a stunning new novel that showcases Sue Miller's singular gift for exposing the nerves that lie hidden in marriages and families, and the hopes and regrets that lie buried in the hearts of women. Maine, 1919. Georgia Rice, who has cared for her father and two siblings since her mother's death, is diagnosed, at nineteen, with tuberculosis and sent away to a sanitarium. Freed from the burdens of caretaking, she discovers a nearly lost world of youth and possibility, and meets the doomed young man who will become her lover. Vermont, the present. On the heels of a divorce, Catherine Hubbard, Georgia's granddaughter, takes up residence in Georgia's old house. Sorting through her own affairs, Cath stumbles upon the true story of Georgia's life and marriage, and of the misunderstanding upon which she built a lasting love. With the tales of these two women--one a country doctor's wife with a haunting past, the other a twice-divorced San Francisco schoolteacher casting about at midlife for answers to her future--Miller offers us a novel of astonishing richness and emotional depth. Linked by bitter disappointments, compromise, and powerful grace, the lives of Georgia and Cath begin to seem remarkably similar, despite their distinctly different times: two young girls, generations apart, motherless at nearly the same age, thrust into early adulthood, struggling with confusing bonds of attachment and guilt; both of them in marriages that are not what they seem, forced to make choices that call into question the very nature of intimacy, faithfulness, betrayal, and love. Marvelously written, expertly told, The World Below captures the shadowy half-truths of the visible world, and the beauty and sorrow submerged beneath the surfaces of our lives--the lost world of the past, our lost hopes for the future. A tour de force from one of our most beloved storytellers.… (more)
Member:redtop
Title:The World Below: A Novel
Authors:Sue Miller
Info:Ballantine Books (2005), Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages
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The World Below by Sue Miller (2001)

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Showing 1-5 of 25 (next | show all)
by the end of this i wasn't caring at all about these characters or their growth or their past or really any of it. sue miller's writing is so good but i'm finding that i'm maybe not so into what she's writing about or maybe the characters' lives she's interested in? i do like her writing and i like her exploration of themes in quiet books, but somehow they consistently don't hit for me. ( )
  overlycriticalelisa | Jan 1, 2024 |
The World Below by Sue Miller, published in 2001, has a dual storyline about a twice-divorced woman, Cath, and her deceased maternal grandmother, Georgia, who both lost their mothers at a young age. At age 52 with three adult children, Cath leaves her home in San Francisco and moves into Georgia's Vermont home for a while to regroup. While there, she finds Georgia's diaries, and learns all was not as it seemed with her grandparents' marriage. In 1919, Georgia, age 19, was sent to the tuberculosis sanitarium by her twenty-years-older doctor because he felt she needed a break from taking care of her parents and younger siblings during and after her mother's long illness and death, not because she has tuberculosis. Georgia marries the doctor soon after her short stay, but her time at the "san" changes her life, and the parallels to her granddaughter's life are remarkable. This was a nice, quiet, introspective novel to read at the end of the tumultuous Christmas holidays of 2020-21. It's the first book I've read by Miller, but I'd like to read more. ( )
1 vote riofriotex | Jan 4, 2021 |
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12549041

Two stories, two generations apart. Catherine Hubbard leaves San Francisco after her divorce to take up life in an old house in Vermont, passed down from her grandmother, Georgia Rice. Catherine had spent many good nights in the house when young, after her mother died, and had grown attached to Georgia. Over the years the friendship deepened, although at times she regretted not asking Georgia more questions.

Georgia's story begins, essentially, when she is sent at age 18 to a tuberculosis sanitarium ("san") in the early 1900s. She meets a young man, younger and sicker than she is, and the two engage in hidden, scandalous behavior. Interestingly, such liaisons among patients was not uncommon, even in those days. When Georgia later makes references to her "modernity" to her granddaughter, Catherine doesn't follow up.

So it seemed to me that Catherine was embarking on a journey of discovery, and so she is. It isn't as hackneyed as I feared, however. I was envisioning the "rebirth" and clearing of the old Catherine to make way for the new. We've all read that book before. But it is a bit more complicated, and we find parallels between the two women page after page. The women are both intelligent and interesting, and I found the book a pleasure to read. ( )
  slojudy | Sep 8, 2020 |
Sue Miller is an author that I have read over the years. This book was written 20 years ago and although I enjoyed it, I did not find it as engaging as her most recent novels. It was a story about Cath, a 52 year old twice divorced mother of 3 adult children who lives and teaches in San Francisco. She and her brother have inherited her grandmother's Vermont home. Cath had a very strong relationship with Georgia(her grandmother) and lived with her as a teenager following the suicide of her mother. So we see that Cath has had a complicated life. She always had the vision of her grandmother having a solid marriage and life with her grandfather who was 20 years older. Cath goes back to Vermont to spend time at the house and uncovers her grandmother's diaries. The book goes back and forth between the present and the past. This was a solid well written book but it took on too much so that it was hard to get a complete picture of either Cath or Georgia. It was not a page turner but for a reader of other Sue Miller books you may want to give this a try. If you have never read Sue Miller than I suggest her last book(The Arsonist(2014)). ( )
  nivramkoorb | Jul 6, 2020 |
After Cath's divorce, she retreats to her Grandmother's old Vermont house. Sorting through this old childhood home, she stumbles upon Georgia's diaries and find out her grandparent's world was not what she believed it was. There was a whole different world below, ergo the title of the book. ( )
  nancynova | Sep 1, 2018 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Miller, Sueprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Ivey, JudithReadersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Link, ElkeÜbersetzersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Santen, Karina vanTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Dedication
To the memory of Marguerite Mills Beach,
my own beloved storytelling grandmother.
First words
Imagine it: a dry, cool day, the high-piled cumulus clouds moving slowly from northwest to southeast in the sky, their shadows following them across the hay fields yet to be cut for the last time this year.
Quotations
"Wait until they ask," "Wait until they want to know," the books and advice columns say. But my theory is everyone always wants to know, even when they don't have an inkling of what they want to know about.
How do these things change? That what you loved you come to hate?
It seemed how it must be, how we are. It made me think of the borders we all cross, the distances we've all come from what feels like home. Who lives at home, in America, now?
She explained to me whatever I asked her about and more. In that sense there was nothing that was not available to me to know. But knowing is different from understanding.
We talked about the diaries one day. The diaries and the other material. I told him about my compulsive reading and rereading.
"Ah, you've got the bug," he said.
"Is that what it is?" I asked. "Is that what it feels like to you when you're doing research on something?"
"Very much."
"Without the personal connection, though."
"No, absolutely with it. I think if you don't feel connected, if you don't feel that what you're figuring out is going to answer something personally for you, then you don't do it. I can't imagine doing it, at any rate."
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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From the author of While I Was Gone, a stunning new novel that showcases Sue Miller's singular gift for exposing the nerves that lie hidden in marriages and families, and the hopes and regrets that lie buried in the hearts of women. Maine, 1919. Georgia Rice, who has cared for her father and two siblings since her mother's death, is diagnosed, at nineteen, with tuberculosis and sent away to a sanitarium. Freed from the burdens of caretaking, she discovers a nearly lost world of youth and possibility, and meets the doomed young man who will become her lover. Vermont, the present. On the heels of a divorce, Catherine Hubbard, Georgia's granddaughter, takes up residence in Georgia's old house. Sorting through her own affairs, Cath stumbles upon the true story of Georgia's life and marriage, and of the misunderstanding upon which she built a lasting love. With the tales of these two women--one a country doctor's wife with a haunting past, the other a twice-divorced San Francisco schoolteacher casting about at midlife for answers to her future--Miller offers us a novel of astonishing richness and emotional depth. Linked by bitter disappointments, compromise, and powerful grace, the lives of Georgia and Cath begin to seem remarkably similar, despite their distinctly different times: two young girls, generations apart, motherless at nearly the same age, thrust into early adulthood, struggling with confusing bonds of attachment and guilt; both of them in marriages that are not what they seem, forced to make choices that call into question the very nature of intimacy, faithfulness, betrayal, and love. Marvelously written, expertly told, The World Below captures the shadowy half-truths of the visible world, and the beauty and sorrow submerged beneath the surfaces of our lives--the lost world of the past, our lost hopes for the future. A tour de force from one of our most beloved storytellers.

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