Why: When I was in high school or college I read The Good Mother. and it kind of stayed with me. It showed that Miller has a way of getting under your skin, which may be why I've avoided her all these years. But when I saw this one at the right price I dove right in.
Miller's prose is so natural and engaging it seems effortless, which of course it cannot be. Jo is a veterinarian, very happily married to a minister and with three adult daughters. She finds herself a bit restless in her newly empty nest and a chance encounter with an old roommate sets her reminiscing about an earlier time in her life, and its secrets and she starts wondering what could be different, sending a wrecking ball through her life's placid domesticity. It's hard for me to describe what exactly this book is about, but I found it difficult to put down, mostly due to Miller's prose and characterizations. ( )

Although Jo does imperil her marriage, I never got a true sense of her yearning for her past. Sure she talked about what happened to her and what went before, but that time seems nostalgic not longed for. When she meets up with Eli from the house, she is curious about him and how he’d changed into the person he is now. She yearns for what might have been then, not what actually was then.

I had a feeling that Eli killed Dana from the very beginning. Why else would he be coming into things and what other revelation could shake things off kilter so much? I do see how the admission of temptation can be a relationship wrecker. Daniel was hurt more by her wanting to sleep with Eli than he might have been if she actually had. He said that it took his confession of the murder of her old friend to keep Jo from doing it.

The 3 girls were interesting though. Jo bringing the police into things after Eli’s confession alienated the one daughter that had any remaining closeness to her mother. Eli’s wife is one of the daughter’s most admired professors and after Jo’s revelation, the wife no longer wants to work with the daughter on a special project that counts as two credits for the daughter. It would have been interesting to see how the relationship could have been saved…both relationships actually.

In the end, the police can’t prove Jo’s accusation after Eli denies it saying that she accused him only because he rebuffed her advances (men’s egos can be so fragile they will do anything to protect them). Daniel is hurt for a while & they spend some time apart (he to a conference, she to help her ailing mother). When he picks her up at Logan, they fall back into the rhythm of their lives.

One thing that one of the other daughters said struck me as true; it’s easy for things to be hard. A hard life is sometimes a cop-out because the person didn’t have strength to find happiness. Having a happy life if work sometimes.

Recommended by MIL, it had philosophical qeustions about truth and honesty and justice that made me really sit and think, but as far as an enjoyable read, it was not one of my favorites. This is a book that makes me wish I belonged to a book club because I would love to discuss some of the themes with others and see how differently different people view the same events and choices we make. ( )

This is a book that badly needed editing. A really long set up for a pretty good short story. ( )

This story of a wife and mother suddenly revisiting her past had great moments and held my attention. Still it had long, boring passages.

I found the protagonist annoying and self-indulgent in a way that didn't jibe at all with the way she thought of herself. Further, her inability to see it, even in the end left me unsatisfied.

At points, her descriptions and observations, while interesting and well drawn, dragged on. Her focus on minutia rang untrue to me, her description of her marriage and her husband was so perfect, that it made what followed wholly unbelievable.

In fact, all the male characters in this book, from her husband, to Eli, to the other men in "the house" felt more like a woman's fantasy of what a man is than anyone I've actually known.

Not a bad pick if you're willing to have a quick read, nostalgic for the 60s, and willing to not think too much. ( )

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Over the past year or so I’ve lost count of the number of fellow readers who have written about the pleasure they have had from the books of Sue Miller and I’ve finally been forced by the sheer weight of opinion to beg the library to find me a copy of at least one of her books. Librarians, if you’re reading this. be warned, you are going to have to go out and find me her entire back catalogue because I am now definitely one of the converted.
Mind you, I opened While I Was Gone with a certain amount of trepidation. Two of the quotes on the back of my copy likened Miller to an American Joanna Trollope and while I have nothing against Trollope as a beach read, I wouldn’t think of her as a great stylist, as the sort of writer to whom I would feel the need to return as a pressing force in my reading life. My fellow bloggers clearly did think of Miller in this light. Who was right?
Well, I’m glad, if not surprised, to say that the bloggers are. Miller may explore the same sort of domestic canvas as Trollope, but she is a far better writer and a far more precise and delicate observer of human nature than her British counterpart. While I Was Gone is the story of Jo Becker, an established member of her small community, the local vet and wife of one of the local pastors. Jo has reached a turning point in her life. Her three children have left home and she finds herself feeling somehow disassociated from all that has gone before, as if the life that she has lived has passed and she has now to go forward and find some sort of new life, almost a new personna. Jo, however, is wrong. Into her life comes an old acquaintance, Eli Mayhew, a house-mate from her early twenties, a period in her life when Jo was also striving to understand who she was and what she wanted, a time, ultimately, of great tragedy. Eli’s reappearance forces Jo to recognise that in fact it isn’t possible to disassociate herself from who she has been and the ‘baggage’ that she inevitably brings with her. The emotions that her situation reawaken in Jo threaten her relationship with her husband, Daniel, and with her three daughters, especially the youngest, Sadie, and she has to recognise that she cannot isolate herself from others, expecting them to accept life as she re-writes it despite the implications it may have for them and their lives.
This book is a superb exploration of the way in which we place ourselves at the centre of the world and forget that our every action has consequences that others may read in a very different way to ourselves, because we are not the centre of the world as they see it. Having said that, Jo never comes over as a selfish, ego-centric monster, In fact, quite the contrary. She comes over as a human being, the same as each and every one of us. In reading about Jo, we could be reading about ourselves. This is a book about the human condition.
According to my copy there are at least five more Miller novels out there and as this was written in 1999 I can only hope that there have been others published since. Miller is going to the very top of ‘must be read’ list.

While I Was Gone, is another study in familial crime and punishment. But this time, her wife and good mother is accessory to more than emotional malfeasance. Jo Becker has everything a woman could desire: a loving spouse, contented children, and a nice dog or two. When her New England veterinary practice takes on a new client, however, her past comes back to haunt her. Long ago, it seems, Jo had escaped her family and identity for a commune in Cambridge. Her Aquarian illusions came to an abrupt, bloody end when one of her housemates was brutally murdered. ( )

Hated the main character, hated the ending, hated the 'pho' marriage to Daniel and Jo's justification for everything she did to him. ( )

While I sometimes felt like Jo needed someone to slap her and tell her to grow up, like some other reviewers mentioned, I still enjoyed this novel. The story was interesting, and the author showed a character who matured, but still fell into the same pattern--running away from her life. ( )

Miller's book is reasonably well-written and the book is easty to read without requiring too much analysis or thought. There were two instances in the book in which some character said to her heroine, Joey, "Grow up." I would heartily endorse that. The story is told from Joey's point of view and her character is very limited. She's self-involved, without being self-analytical, and her view of the people around her, including those whom she loves, is entirely colored by how their feelings, actions, etc. affect her. My inablity to empathize with the heroine (I just wanted to say,"For God's sake, GROW UP!" made it hard to really like the book. Interestingly, the least well-developed of her main characters was by far the most engaging. Daniel, Joey's husband, whilea bit of a saint, hinted at much that was unexplored. A pity that the author didn't explore that further. ( )

This book has put me off reading anything else in Oprah's Book Club. ( )

Just goes to show that going back can be dangerous, as well as being discontent with your life.

Big thumbs up from me. I really enjoyed this. Good plot. I've had similiar feelings to the heroine. I couldn't put the book down! ( )

While I was gone is a story of a woman who, despite an idyllic family life, cannot shake a feeling of restlessness. The restlessness gets compounded after she meets a friend from her haunting, wild and unconventional past.
The beauty of the book was in its un-exaggerated portrayal of an imperfect, flawed heroine, which made her much more identifiable compared to the perfect, morally upright woman. Of course, the narrator does question her morals once in a while, which seems a little artificial.
The story is interesting and made it difficult for me to put down the book once I picked it up. The plot flattens out towards the end, but that seems almost inevitable in most stories.
The language is simple and therefore easy to read.
All in all, a good read - different and in a way refreshing. ( )

As is the case with Miller's other books that I've read (or maybe I've only read one other), I had a hard time connecting with the narrator. I just didn't like her very much, so it was difficult to care about her troubles. She's a successful veterinarian, with a good marriage and lovely children. One day, however, someone from her past walks in and threatens to resurrect the ghosts of the past that she'd tried to escape for many years. ( )

I enjoyed this because I thought the plot was intriguing and the writing solid. I am finding that I tend not to like Miller's female protagonists . . . can't quite put my finger on why though. ( )

Sue Miller is talented to have clearly captured an unlikable character--Jo, the main character. It seems to me that it's easy to write a character who is likable and always "does the right thing", but it is more difficult to create one who does not. Jo is annoying and bothersome with her ungratefulness and constant yearning for something else, and I admire Miller for drawing Jo so well. ( )

Sue Miller captured my heart in a peculiar way that is hard to describe. I just felt swept away as I was reading. It felt like I was right in the room with the characters and was rooting for them all the time. This book is a very good read. ( )