While I Was Gone: Summary and book reviews of While I Was Gone by Sue Miller, plus links to an excerpt from While I Was Gone and a biography of Sue Miller.

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.

Media Reviews

The New York Times Miller does many things well in this novel. She shows a deep respect for all her characters.... The narrative pacing is masterly, building tension even in its most psychologically subtle passages. The story is at once so well made and vividly imagined that one might call it an exercise in spontaneous craftsmanship.   Newsday - Dan Cryer This is gripping, close-to-the-bone fiction...It is the most acomplished novel in a career that began promisingly with The Good Mother and gained strength...For the narrator keeping part of herself secret has become central to her identity...While I Was Gone urges us to consider, very carefully, what's best told and what's best kept private.   The New York Times Book Review ...it is ... a beautiful and frightening book, one that many readers will find difficult to forget.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Mimi
When I was gone, Sue Miller
Is a book that readers can connect to in some way. like Jo, everyone has things they ran away from, and kept hidden till something re-triggers the cryptic secret. Jo is so skeptical about what she is doing. It makes it hard for the reader to...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Deborah
While I Was Gone
A rating of (5) doesn't do this book justice. I was unable to put this book down, and now that I've finished, I keep going back and reading and re-reading parts again and again. Her characters come alive as you keep reading. I'm waiting for the...   Read More

Rated of 5 by f°
While I Was Gone by Sue Miller
While I Was Gone is an awesome book. I feel everyone in some way or the other can relate to this book. The plot revolves around the main character Joey better known as Jo Becker who's friends was murdered. The characteristics of Jo are...   Read More

Rated of 5 by kelly
Very good and exciting! I really enjoyed this book! It took me places in my mind I never thought I could go!!

Rated of 5 by Michelle
I thought While You Were gone was a wondeful novel! Im 14 so the feelings of beeing trapped and alone wihen your not relate to me but in a diffrent way. As a teen its not marrige i wouyld liek to run away from, its family/school. Anyways, this book...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Shelly Collins
The messages about truth and deciet, death and living are so vivid and enlightening. I gained a whole new perspective on how to deal with the trials and tribulations that are common to us all. Miller really hit home.

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