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Usually ships in 1-2 business days | | Only 1 left in stock, order soon! | | | | | | A decade ago she put a face on every mother's worst nightmare with her phenomenal best-seller The Good Mother. Now, Sue Miller delivers a spellbinding novel of love and betrayal that explores what it means to be a good wife.
In the summer of 1968, Jo Becker ran out on the marriage and the life her parents wanted for her, and escaped--for one beautiful, idyllic year--into a life that was bohemian and romantic, living under an assumed name in a rambling group house in Cambridge. It was a time of limitless possibility, but it ended in a single instant when Jo returned home one night to find her best friend lying dead in a pool of blood on the living room floor.
Now Jo has everything she's ever wanted: a veterinary practice she loves, a devoted husband, three grown daughters, a beautiful Massachusetts farmhouse. And if occasionally she feels a stranger to herself and wonders what happened to the freedom she once felt, or how she came to be the wife, mother, and doctor her neighbors know and trust--if at times she feels as if her whole life is vanishing behind her as she's living it--she need only look at her daughters or her husband, Daniel, to recall the satisfactions of family and community and marriage.
But when an old housemate settles in her small town, the fabric of Jo's life begins to unravel: seduced again by the enticing possibility of another self and another life, she begins a dangerous flirtation that returns her to the darkest moment of her past and imperils all she loves.
While I Was Gone is an exquisitely suspenseful novel about how quickly and casually a marriage can be destroyed, how a good wife can find herself placing all she holds dear at risk. In expert strokes, Sue Miller captures the precariousness of even the strongest ties, the ease with which we abandon each other, and our need to be forgiven. An extraordinary book, her best, from a beloved American writer. | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Sue Miller | | Hardcover: | 288 pages | | Publisher: | Knopf | | Publication Date: | January 19, 1999 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0375401121 | | Package Length: | 9.3 inches | | Package Width: | 6.2 inches | | Package Height: | 1.4 inches | | Package Weight: | 1.3 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 76 reviews |
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 As real as it gets Nov 08, 2009
I just finished this book, and then read some of the reviews, both ends of the spectrum. I am astonished by the negative reviews and some of the comments by those reviewers. I have to say that it is an unusual book in that it actually seems to be about some very real people, struggling with some very real life issues. The main character is both sympathetic, and irritating...what's that...dare I say it...Human? She makes mistakes...lots of them, but she isn't vicious or in any way intentional in her hurtfulness, and while it sometimes takes her awhile to figure it out, she does become aware eventually of how her actions, both in the past and the present, have repercussions. She makes decisions based on what she thinks at the time, and later realizes how wrong she was, and how just one spoken word, left unsaid, could have made the difference. But she doesn't always understand how she is affecting those she loves, thoughtlessly acting on her first impulse, or even thinking it through and coming to a conclusion that later seems unwise. Does this sound like anyone you know? Maybe you have to be of a certain age to completely understand this, but human beings will, and often do, make mistakes, sometimes terrible and completely life altering, sometimes just unwise, causing life to change almost invisibly, but changing nevertheless, and it isn't a black and white world that we live in. Welcome to the real world.
 Not What I was Hoping For Sep 01, 2009
This book had so much potential to be great but in the end it just didn't deliver. I found it hard to like the main character because she seemed very selfish. The main plot could have been interesting but the details were too boring and drawn out. I would not recommend it.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 first book I didn't finish Feb 03, 2009
I've always finished any book I've begun to read. Whether it's because my selections have been so well chosen (ha!) or some other factor I don't know; "While I Was Gone," however, has been the one exception.
I got to the middle and then read a little bit further before I couldn't take it anymore. I was waiting patiently, to no avail, for the story to pick up the pace.
There are two main reasons why I found this novel so boring:
1. The plot---the "twist." Everything that unravels I saw coming. If you read a lot and pay attention to detail, you'll figure the book out pretty quick. This makes for a pretty uninteresting reading experience.
2. The characters. Miller doesn't give me a reason to care about them or what happens to them. She provides emotional moments that do little more than make me think "oh, how sad or oh, how unfortunate." Sort of the same trite response one comes up with when reading through the myriad of unfortunate but mundane tragedies in the newspaper.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Insight Into the Human Condition Jan 05, 2009
Dr. Jo Becker, a vet in a small MA town has a great life...a busy practice, a seemingly happy marriage to minister Daniel, and three grown daughters. Just when she should be enjoying alone time with her husband, why does she feel something is missing? As uncertainty stirs through her, she flashes back to her life just out of college. She had jumped into a hasty marriage to Ted, a young man studying to be a doctor. Those were the days when young, "nice" girls didn't live with a guy, so marriage was the only way she could find what she thought would be her independence. But her marriage was unfulfilling and she ran away to Cambridge where she shared a house with six other young people; two girls and four guys. She felt free and alive for the first time and loved her bohemian life until tragedy struck, which changed her and her housemates forever. Jo was forced to grow up and change her life, so she went back to school to become a vet then married Daniel, and gave birth to and raised three girls.
After nearly three decades, one of the room mates from her past moves to her town with his wife and brings his dog to her office for treatment. Jo is taken back to her youth, and her restlessness with her life intensifies. She fanaticizes an affair with this guy and when they meet at a posh Boston hotel, he blurts out a confession from his past which sends her reeling. She tells Daniel, admitting her attraction to this man, causing a bigger rift between them. Later, when she goes to the authorities with the information, it backfires and she realizes she truly loves Daniel, though fears she has ruined their marriage forever.
This thought provoking book takes the reader to the point of uncertainty of their own past and mistakes they may have made, and gives us insight into what we would do had we been in her shoes. A page turner it incited anger, frustration and angst, but delved deep into the human condition, handling it with aplomb.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Fine writing and real feelings May 19, 2000
This was my first experience reading Sue Miller. I was drawn to the book by the multitude of good reviews from reputable publications, and those reviewers were right about this work. It resonates, it moves, it captures character, memory, emotion, and some of the mystery of human nature. The characters became so life-like for me while I was reading that I found myself thinking about them, psychoanalyzing their motivations, seeing their faces in front of me. I guess the book reached me in particular because I fall into Jo and Daniel's generation. I too experienced life in a group house in the late sixties and early seventies and I easily related to all the yearning and pent up idealism of those times. A word about Sue Miller's penchant for detail: I think what good literature does is sort out the details of living and make a work of art from them. The details draw you in, and finally produce emotional impact that stays with you. So if you have no patience for detail and just want lots of action, a la trash novels, stay away from this one. I for one am happy I discovered Sue Miller. The Good Mother is next.
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