WHILE I WAS GONE
Sue Miller, 1999

I have a lot of mixed emotions about this book. Sue Miller is a strong writer, creating well-defined characters, all of whom are perfect on the surface, but with serious flaws. The main character Jo Becker is so flawed the author admits she doesn’t even like her. Miller is known for some great setting description, but at times she just gets bogged down and the story just drags.
Here’s the setup. Jo Becker is a happily married woman with a wonderful husband who is a pastor, a perfect pastor. She has three grown, reasonably successful daughters, and she is a greatly admired veterinarian. So why does she find herself ruminating about her time in the 60s when she lived in a house with other young people. She romanticizes this time even though a great tragedy occurred. Jo wishes she could find the girl she used to be back then. She is restless and dissatisfied. One day a man comes into her practice needing to put his dog down. He has recently moved to town and she is startled to realize she knows him from those days. As her obsession grows she tells lie after lie, even more so than the lies she has always told her whole life. But when is it one lie too many and it all falls apart?
So… Jo, Daniel her husband, and the man all have the aura of perfection from society’s point of view, but there are serious flaws. Can these characters recognize and overcome their defects of character and show growth, or will they remain blind and stunted. It’s an interesting look at our human essence, but can definitely get frustrating. There are a few topics worthy of discussion.
I’m glad I didn’t know that Miller didn’t like her main character ahead of the reading the book. I found her unlikeable on my own, which made the novel a little difficult to get through, but I at least held out hope for redemption and that kept me going. One nice twist is that the novel starts out as one kind story and suddenly becomes something entirely different.
And finally, I’m not convinced this is worthy of an Oprah selection, but it is a quick read and you don’t have to think too much.

I liked this book until I realized that I has 1/3 of the way through and couldn't figure out where things were going. And, I figured out I didn't like the lying, cheating central character, who was writing from her own perspective (first person) and absolutely oblivious to how she was hurting people. Even at the end of the book, when she'd had her "epiphany," it was no epiphany, and she did not change, she just found better ways to cover up her lying and cheating.

Not impressed. I prefer main characters that I might want to be friends with, or at least have some sympathy for. She alienated everyone around her through her selfish actions, and would definitely not be on my Christmas card list!

I really didn’t think much of this book. I liked the start of the book but then it kind of drifted at about half way though and it kind of lost me.

I know others loved it but it wasn’t for me.

I found myself constantly frustrated with the main character of this book. You have a great life why are you trying to ruin it?! I would say that this would be a good read for a book club to do since it does allow for a lot of discussion points.

This was a reread for me, and I'm not sure it was worth it. When While I Was Gone came out in 1999, many of us were reminiscing about our antics during the sexy 60s, but today that theme seems dated.

When the novel opens, Jo Becker, middle-aged housewife and mother, is suffering a peculiar malaise. Her two grown daughters have left the nest, and she feels a sense of purposelessness despite having her youngest girl close by and running a successful veterinarian practice. When a chance encounter reintroduces a friend from her past, a year she lived in a communal house with a bunch of young adults (hippies), it sets in motion a series of events that call into question her whole identity. Members of her family, including her loving husband Daniel, begin to wonder who she really is and what secrets she has hidden and left buried.

The novel does not have the zip it must have had for me originally, though I saved it on my shelf for many years. The plot involves a murder and later a stunning confession, but it does not rise to the level of a crime story. It is more about identities, how we tailor them through life and what the consequences might be, and how we ask for forgiveness.

This novel was well-written but not compelling.

I read this for my couples counseling class (we had to then write a paper imagining that we were the main characters' pastor) and quite enjoyed it. The setting -- a New England town quite like the one where I grew up -- was richly imagined, and Miller offers realistic insights into her narrator's inner life.

The author says in the back-of-the-book interview that she found it hard to like Jo and I agree with her. I found Jo to be too self-centered and Daniel to be somewhat of a jerk. I also felt the kids were spoiled. No one in this family seems really loving. They're all involved in their own pursuits to the exclusion of everyone else. I agree that Daniel's sermon represents a turning point and was one of the more pleasurable sections. I do find it odd that Jo doesn't participate more in Daniel's life. She observes, she tolerates, she takes a vicarious pleasure in it, but she's not part of it. The closest communion they have is with the dogs. Even their children interact with them differently.

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.

I like a book that is full of believable characters and this is one of them. Took me a bit to really get interested in the story, but once I did I couldn't put it down. Stayed up until 2 am to finish it. I figured there would be more to Dana's murder than it seemed there was at first. Actually wondered if she had killed herself and one of the other housemates witnessed it but didn't say anything. Looking forward to trying another book by the same author. Not sure what else she has written.

I feel wrong rating this only three stars. It is, from as far as I read, well written, but I have come to admit that I do not care for the characters Sue Miller gives us. They're too, I don't know, suburban for me. I tried to read this book, the second of her books I've tried to read, and first put it down after about 10 pages. Was advised to give it a chance, it isn't so suburban. And, indeed, it got a bit more intriguing for the next 30 pages, but then it was back to the characters in their lives, and their predictable current and anticipated predicaments, and I just stopped. I would much rather read a Richard Bausch or a Robert Bausch book, or a Susan Kenney book, or Clarice Lispector, etc.

If Sue Miller's topics and voice resonate with you, read it! and read other of her books. And read Anne Tyler, because you'd probably like her too. I just can't.

The title give me nothing, though fitting. It echoed the blandness of Jo's life. Where was the growth of the main character? Is her complacency with herself an answer to a life without faith? Themes of faith were screaming to be explored in more depth, but they were abandoned by the author. I rated this a four, because I enjoyed the writer's craft and flow, and the fact that she gives me themes to think about...even if the resolution leaves me unsatisfied.

I'm not done w this yet, but using this space to save a quote that's a few characters too long for an update:

p50 "My mother tells me that I was a willful little girl, but I don't remember that. What I remember is later, when I wasn't willful anymore: the inner calm of knowing that I was satisfying expectations, I was pleasing. The self isn't important in such a feeling. It was only as I began to startle and disappoint others that I was aware of myself at all--that I came to understand, slowly, that I wasn't who I had pretended to be.