The first half was fine, but the second was tedious and unintelligent. The outcome of the 'significant action' was totally predictable and expected and both Jo and Daniel should have seen it, and certainly discussed it. Josie's husband, the minister, who would have had oodles of experience at counselling people, should have given her advice right from the get go. Disappointing and long winded.

By about halfway through, I thoroughly disliked the narrator and didn't really care what happened to her. The "mystery" was also easily solved by that point. Good writing, terrible story/characters/interest/plot.

My friend Nick got me onto "The Miller" cannon, and this one didn't disappoint. I tend to enjoy novels about people who have Had a Past, where that past juts up against the present, and about the damaging power of secrets to unbury themselves. This had all of that, in the story of a woman who lived in the late sixties in a group house where her friend was murdered--they thought by a random burglar, but of course not. Later in life she meets one man who was the roommate she knew the least, and you can guess at the part he played in the past. I don't consider giving this away to be a spoiler because interestingly the mystery of whodunnit is just a tiny fraction of what the book is about. Also interestingly, the narrator becomes attracted to this man from her past--and how he represents a part of her youth she misses--and that's what ends up being her own (almost) undoing in the present, as it tears at the life she has built for herself as an adult (and undermines her attempts to turn him in and get justice for her friend). Having read a few Millers now, I am seeing some patterns. She is a HIGHLY psychological writer, whose characters examine their own impulses and feelings and then re-examine them again and again. I personally find this mostly satisfying (and often extremely insightful) though at times it can get a bit ponderous. (That observation made me laugh because it is the definition of ponderous, in its truest sense). Her characters aren't exactly "likable" (hi Nick) which I do like. I think she might be the master of "the prickly woman," a category which this narrator fits into. I like how beneath it all there is a subtext always of how limited our knowledge of each other finally is, and even perhaps of ourselves. I also continue to enjoy the Mass specific details in her fiction, and in this case the lovely writing on dogs. (The narrator is a vet). A slow burn. For the first half I was intermittently interested. The part about the past in the group home was less compelling to me than once past and present started braiding together and Jo's life unravelled.

Somewhat unwillingly,I reread this novel for a book group.
And I found details about Sue Miller's style that I had not
paid attention to in my first go round.She is a master of
natural description and I slowed to savor the snow falling
in New England and the pleasures of walking the dogs late on an autumn evening.
Miller strikes me as both a highly moral author and one who is scrupulously honest about her characters inner thoughts and motives. The tension between these results in
gripping prose and in characters we don't completely like,but
in whom we believe. I am always a bit uncomfortable when I
have read a Miller novel,but I have not missed one.

Oh the secrets we keep. Hoping to protect our loved ones, retaining our self-respect, hiding our faults from others. But in keeping those secrets do we build walls around ourselves keeping others at an arm's length? This novel just scratches the surface of these bigger questions as we listen to Jo's story of her relationship now with her husband, mother, and adult children and in the past with a group of people who only knew what she had told them. And how it all comes out in the end.

I absolutely adored this book. I related to Jo probably more than the majority of the characters I've read in the past few years; she was so well written, her predicament was so well written, and even the open-endedness of it all was so quaint, so beautifully orchestrated--it was all perfect. I love Sue Miller's writing style, and I'm so glad I picked this book up.

Endings are hard on people. They're even harder on novels. By the time readers arrive at the end of a story, they've built up an emotional and intellectual investment. They've earned - or think they've earned - a certain expertise about the plot, the tone, and the characters in between the covers.

Novelists can get away with anything at the start of a book, but by the end, like it or not, writers are entangled in a kind of collaboration with their audience.

Two of last year's finest books slipped off their tracks toward the end. After an intense first half, Barbara Kingsolver's "Poisonwood Bible" fractures into a collection of stories that dissipate her novel's power. "A Man in Full," Tom Wolfe's enormous and otherwise wonderful book, concludes as though the writer were running late for an appointment.

Unfortunately, the same could be said for Sue Miller's engaging new novel, "While I Was Gone." What's good about Miller's writing is remarkably good. But in the end, the structure of this book is unsound. Its conclusion doesn't satisfy the high standards it sets for itself.

The frank narrator, Jo Becker, has it all: a beautifully restored farmhouse in western Massachusetts, a satisfying career as a veterinarian, and an understanding husband who adores her and his own job as a minister.

Jo is the first to acknowledge that hers is a wonderful life, and yet when lazily napping at one end of her husband's fishing boat, she's haunted by a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. "I had felt something like this every now and then in the last year or so, sometimes at work as I tightened a stitch or gave an injection: the awareness of having done this a thousand times before, or surely having a thousand times left to do it again. Of doing it well and thoroughly and neatly, as I like to do things, and simultaneously of being at a great distance from my own action."

Miller is a master at plumbing the confluence of emotions that run through a long, loving marriage. In this highly confessional narrative, Jo trusts her husband enough to air her flashes of self-pity and episodes of melodramatic regret. They speak to one another in a mixture of affection, wisdom, and gentle mocking that only years of intimacy can build. And though she doesn't share her husband's religious faith, they've negotiated a profound respect for each other's beliefs.

We're introduced to this admirable marriage just a moment before it's stretched to the breaking point. A chance encounter puts Jo back in touch with Eli, a friend from her hippie days in Cambridge. Both have thoroughly remade themselves since their bohemian days in the late '60s, but their unexpected meeting ignites old feelings of love and regret that threaten to ruin them.

At this crucial point, however, the novel falters. Part of the problem is that Miller hasn't given herself enough room. Jo and Eli find themselves drawn to one another even as they revisit a grisly murder that broke up their commune 30 years ago. Miller moves so expertly through her delicate portrayal of Jo's life in the first 200 pages that it's difficult to understand why she barrels through this complex, exciting material toward the end.

The other problem is that the character of Jo's husband, whom Miller has designed so expertly, reacts with baffling iciness to his wife's temptation to commit adultery. Inexplicably, the immense affection and spiritual wisdom he demonstrates through most of the book doesn't help him react more humanely to his wife's moral struggle. Instead, he withdraws at the moment she needs him most - at the moment we expect him to be there.

"While I Was Gone" remains a beautiful novel that raises fascinating questions about our connection to the people we once were and the ability to remake ourselves, but it's a book that leaves one wanting and deserving more.

http://www.csmonitor.com/1999/0211/p1...

Not only did this go back and forth in time the overall standard of the novel was up and down like a slow moving roller coaster. The first third was well written and gripping. The middle section goes nowhere, picks up again and the ending is abysmal without a proper resolution.
Told through Jo, a complex character who keeps secrets so at times she becomes an unreliable narrator.
There is a murder, which when the police get the chance to solve, some thirty years later come up with an excuse not to pursue the matter.
At this, I started shaking my head in disbelief.
This novel should have been so much better.

This book had a promising storyline, but bogged down with a lot of unnecessary story telling that didn't apply to the plot. It took me about 70 pages to get into what the book was even about. I couldn't relate with the main character, Jo, she seemed so unhappy about everything. The ending was rushed, unrealistic and unsatisfying.

Jo, a happily married middle-aged woman with a restless past when she lived in a commune in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the late 60s, unexpectedly meets someone from those days who sheds light on a frightening event in her life and his. Her marriage to Daniel, and her relationships with her children, suffer from this discovery.

Alas, Daniel is too good to be true. Hell, Jo's dogs are too good to be true - though admittedly she is a veterinarian. Thank goodness for her badly behaved punk rock daughter: she seems real.

"While I Was Gone" is slow to develop but finally gets to the point. It's a good beach read. Too bad I read it in February. Avoid this soap opera.

This book kept me interested, but it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t relate to the characters and didn’t find the plot interesting.

I finally finished this after what feels like forever (not a problem with the book so much as a problem with my schedule). I think the drawn out reading time did not do the book any favors. Also knowing the ending ahead of time due to our book club discussion meant I was reading the last third with different preconceptions than before. Even so though, this is a difficult book because Jo, our main character, is not immediately likeable or sympathetic and the decisions she makes don't help improve the matter. Miller does an excellent job of creating characters that seem like very real people complete with flaws. The act and concept of forgiveness are central to the novel but with my reading so fragmented I don't feel like I got the chance to absorb what Miller was trying to say on the subject. Perhaps someday I'll have the time to read it again.

November 2007 COTC Book Club selection.