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"A sensual and perceptive novel. . . . With humor and humanity, Miller resists the simple scorned-wife story and instead crafts a revelatory tale of the complexitiesâ??and the absurditiesâ??of love, infidelity, and grief." â??O, the Oprah Magazine
A brilliantly insightful novel, engrossing and haunting, about marriage, love, family, happiness and sorrow, from New York Times bestselling author Sue Miller.
Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years. Their seemingly effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of friends and acquaintances. By all appearances, they are a golden couple.
Graham is a bookseller, a big, gregarious man with large appetitesâ??curious, eager to please, a lover of life, and the convivial host of frequent, lively parties at his and Annie's comfortable house in Cambridge. Annie, more reserved and introspective, is a photographer. She is about to have her first gallery show after a six-year lull and is worried that the best years of her career may be behind her. They have two adult children; Lucas, Graham's son with his first wife, Frieda, works in New York. Annie and Graham's daughter, Sarah, lives in San Francisco. Though Frieda is an integral part of this far-flung, loving family, Annie feels confident in the knowledge that she is Graham's last and greatest love.
When Graham suddenly diesâ??this man whose enormous presence has seemed to dominate their lives togetherâ??Annie is lost. What is the point of going on, she wonders, without him?
Then, while she is still mourning Graham intensely, she discovers a ruinous secret, one that will spiral her into darkness and force her to question whether she ever truly knew the man w… (more)
A skilled author has written a story of widowhood which had moments of interest for me, but I was not wholly engaged perhaps too much pondering, or maybe the POV shifting with each chapter lost my interest. Much skimming on my part. Or is it the times? The pandemic, the change in administration. The other novel I read (also [b:Homeland Elegies|50358133|Homeland Elegies|Ayad Akhtar|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1584627596l/50358133._SY75_.jpg|73536602]) was like this where I could not completely get into the story and was anxious to finish so I could try something else. ( )
A story of people and their relationships. While some of them seemed a bit too reasonable at times, it was still an enjoyable view into the lives of others. Richard Russo reviewing this in the NYT makes sense, as he writes in a similar style. ( )
I'm so sorry I have reached the end of this absolutely fascinating story about the intertwining of so many lives and so beautifully told my Miller. No WONDER it took her six years to produce....there is so much emotional depth in every page---I didn't want to miss a word. I was amazed that Miller was able to make me feel as though she could understand each and every character in the story and how their FELT about what was happening. Very impressive writing. ( )
Annie had been single for seven years when she met Graham.
Quotations
"Are you allowed to say that your own child makes you almost unbearably sad?"
"Love isn't just what two people have together, it's what two people make together, so of course, it's never the same."
She was lost. She'd lost herself. When?
This was how you did it, she thought. How you managed in life. And she had, hadn't she? Right now, the conscious noticing of the sun over the beautiful sweeps of pale-gold spartina, over the dark sea, the faraway boats. These last days, holding the baby, singing to her. At home, the careful preparation of the meal for one. The ritual glass of wine. The slow making of music from the patterns of notes on the lined page. All in the service of some sense of...what? Purpose, she supposed. Order. Or loveliness. A sense of loveliness that made everything possible. Why shouldn't you have to work to hold on to it?
She felt—she had felt for months—that she had nothing of interest to say to anyone.
She'd thought she was memorable. How clear it was that she was not. It wasn't a quality you possessed, she thought now. It was a quality other people endowed you with. She felt small and foolish. Exposed.
But more, she thought, for his honest embrace of pleasure. Pleasure was who Graham was. It was his gift. It was the reason he'd said yes. As he almost always did. "And me?" she thought, whispering it to herself. I said no, of course. But I didn't say no because of who I was, because I was the moral being that Graham wasn't. The reason I didn't do it was because I was scared, because Ian had scared me.
The night he died, when they were talking in the shadowy kitchen, he had called her an open book. A book, open to him. She remembers that now too. She whispers, "Reader, I married you."
Last words
She feels it coming then, and she welcomes its return---the grief that seizes her.
"A sensual and perceptive novel. . . . With humor and humanity, Miller resists the simple scorned-wife story and instead crafts a revelatory tale of the complexitiesâ??and the absurditiesâ??of love, infidelity, and grief." â??O, the Oprah Magazine
A brilliantly insightful novel, engrossing and haunting, about marriage, love, family, happiness and sorrow, from New York Times bestselling author Sue Miller.
Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years. Their seemingly effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of friends and acquaintances. By all appearances, they are a golden couple.
Graham is a bookseller, a big, gregarious man with large appetitesâ??curious, eager to please, a lover of life, and the convivial host of frequent, lively parties at his and Annie's comfortable house in Cambridge. Annie, more reserved and introspective, is a photographer. She is about to have her first gallery show after a six-year lull and is worried that the best years of her career may be behind her. They have two adult children; Lucas, Graham's son with his first wife, Frieda, works in New York. Annie and Graham's daughter, Sarah, lives in San Francisco. Though Frieda is an integral part of this far-flung, loving family, Annie feels confident in the knowledge that she is Graham's last and greatest love.
When Graham suddenly diesâ??this man whose enormous presence has seemed to dominate their lives togetherâ??Annie is lost. What is the point of going on, she wonders, without him?
Then, while she is still mourning Graham intensely, she discovers a ruinous secret, one that will spiral her into darkness and force her to question whether she ever truly knew the man w
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