The World Below

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 show more 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. show less

I didn't expect to like Sue Miller's writing. I'll admit that straight out. Holding a degree in English literature, and being a reviewer for several publishing houses, I've become a bit (okay, a LOT) of a book snob. But there was some quality to Miller's writing that drew me in. Perhaps it was the way she gracefully switched between the two plot lines, one in 1919 and one in modern times, that impressed me. In any event, I didn't expect to be impressed to begin with, and if I hadn't found something to recommend the book I'd have thrown it across the room with great force, despite having actually paid cover price for this one (it was for a book group, and I was in a rush..).

I was most interested in the 1919 sections, being someone who's show more a fan of Edwardian/turn of the century settings in the first place, but even the sections set in contemporary times were compelling enough to keep me interested. I simply liked the two main characters, grandmother and granddaughter, despite the granddaughter's distressingly EASY conduct early in the book. A bit too much information, if you ask me, but then again you really didn't. I was able to forgive Catherine, though, as she was after all moving into the big, rambling home of her late grandmother, and there was my favorite convention of a trunk filled with mementos to be gone through. A character gets very high marks from me for respecting the past and honoring the dead, etc., though not for dropping knickers for every man who happens by. I do have my standards.

Though this isn't high literature, it's at least a cut above so many other authors writing today. Yes, it's somewhat a romance, and yes, there is a cheese factor to deal with, but this is an entertaining, readable sort of book. It's something to read when you're lazing around on a Sunday, or to bring along on vacation, or when your library book group is reading it, and you work at the library so would like to stay in the good books of your co-workers.

So, read this one, but for god's sake PLEASE read something more literary at least on a semi-regular basis, then it won't be a crime to have a bit of this sort of "junk food" from time to time.. And support your local public library!

Now I shall shut up. show less

Good intentions can change another person's life, but this change may not always be welcome. When the mother of two girls dies, their grandmother arrives to take them back to her rural home. Their father refuses the offer; privately, the girls laugh at the notion of living with their backwoods relative. But she was right. Caring for their widowed father would prove to be a great sacrifice. They probably would have been better off with the freedom their grandmother's care could have provided.

Years later, when the elder daughter becomes ill, her doctor sends her away to a sanatorium for her health. When she returns, the two marry. After several decades together she discovers that she wasn't really sick enough to warrant the sanatorium. show more Her husband sent her because he thought it would be best, because he thought she needed to escape the life she had taking care of her father.

She is not grateful for his intervention. She liked the life she had. The doctor's well intended gesture had changed her life forever.

Years later, the doctor will do the same for his grand-daughter by sending her to Paris to live with her aunt. There she will discover a side of the grandmother who has raised her that she never suspected.

Sue Miller writes about the ways relationships can be complicated by simple acts and by dramatic ones. Sometimes these are one in the same. In The World Below some characters reveal their past lives, others are discovered, but no one is who we think they are, not entirely. Everyone has a history. Discovering it can be painful, revealing it can be cruel.

Ms. Miller understands the complexities of people and the relationship they form. She understands that even happy families struggle to maintain their relationships. Her work proves Tolstoy wrong, happy families are not all alike. You just have to look a bit harder, get to know them intimately. Families are complex things. For love to survive, some things must be revealed, some things are best kept secret. show less

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.

Sue Miller’s 7th novel - The World Below - begins in Maine in the early part of the twentieth century with Georgia Rice. Georgia’s mother has recently died from cancer, and Georgia - being the eldest child of three siblings - steps into the role of caring for her father and younger brother and sister. But an unexpected diagnosis of tuberculosis sends her to a sanitarium which will change her life in unexpected ways.

Fast forward to the present day where the reader is introduced to Georgia’s 50-something year old granddaughter, Catherine Hubbard who has returned to her grandparent’s home to start over again after a recent divorce. Catherine discovers her grandmother’s diaries, and begins to piece together Georgia’s life.

She show more discovers her own life has paralleled her grandmother’s in inexplicable ways. We learn (through flash backs) that Catherine’s mother, mentally ill and fragile, dies when Catherine is only a teenager, and Catherine briefly goes to live with her grandparents - who are now living in Vermont. During this time in her life, she senses a deep undercurrent of old resentments and misunderstandings which lie beneath the surface of her grandparent’s marriage. Later, as an adult, Catherine starts her own family … and suffers through two painful divorces, leaving her to wonder what her future will bring.

The World Below is a multi-layered, non-linear novel which slips back and forth between the generations. It is a novel about the subtle power struggles within a marriage, the loss of childhood innocence, the re-discovery of self as one moves through the years, and the tenuous hold we have on the past.

I must admit to the novel being slow going for me and a little confusing (with all the flash backs and change in point of view) at the start; but as I made my way through Georgia and Catherine’s lives, their stories began to interest me, and I was slowly pulled into the story. Miller writes with great depth and understanding of her characters - who are filled with the human flaws we all share. Her writing is honest and searing, forcing the reader to examine her own life while sharing the lives of the characters. I have enjoyed Miller’s previous books, and this was no exception.

Recommended. show less

Thoroughly enjoyed this quiet and introspective novel. Catherine is feeling a bit lost and inheriting her Grandmother's house gives her a chance to re-find herself and think about her past and future. At her Grandmothers she finds old diaries and pieces together from these and the household accounts stories from the past. This is beautifully written and I particularly loved the description of the world below in the story, houses below a reservoir that she saw from a boat as a child and her reaction when she was told this was fantasy. Excellent read.

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 show more 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. show less