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The Senator's Wife: A Novel
by Sue Miller
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About This Book
ISBN13: 9780307264206 |
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Once again Sue Miller takes us deep into the private lives of women with this mesmerizing portrait of two marriages exposed in all their shame and imperfection, and in their obdurate, unyielding love. The author of the iconic The Good Mother and the best-selling While I Was Gone brings her marvelous gifts to a powerful story of two unconventional women who unexpectedly change each other's lives.
Meri is newly married, pregnant, and standing on the cusp of her life as a wife and mother, recognizing with some terror the gap between reality and expectation. Delia Naughton — wife of the two-term liberal senator Tom Naughton — is Meri's new neighbor in the adjacent New England town house. Delia's husband's chronic infidelity has been an open secret in Washington circles, but despite the complexity of their relationship, the bond between them remains strong. What keeps people together, even in the midst of profound betrayal? How can a journey imperiled by, and sometimes indistinguishable from, compromise and disappointment culminate in healing and grace? Delia and Meri find themselves leading strangely parallel lives, both reckoning with the contours and mysteries of marriage, one refined and abraded by years of complicated intimacy, the other barely begun.
Here are all the things for which Sue Miller has always been beloved — the complexity of experience precisely rendered, the richness of character and emotion, the superb economy of style — fused with an utterly engrossing story that has a great deal to say to women, and men, of all ages.
Review:
"Bestselling author Miller (The Good Mother; While I Was Gone) returns with a rich, emotionally urgent novel of two women at opposite stages of life who face parallel dilemmas. Meri, the young, sexy wife of a charismatic professor, occupies one wing of a New England house with her husband. An unexpected pregnancy forces her to reassess her marriage and her childhood of neglect. Delia, her elegant neighbor in the opposite wing, is the long-suffering wife of a notoriously philandering retired senator. The couple have stayed together for his career and still share an occasional, deeply intense tryst. The women's routines continue on either side of the wall that divides their homes, and the two begin to flit back and forth across the porch and into each others physical and psychological spaces. A steady tension builds to a bruising denouement. The clash, predicated on Delia's husband's compulsive behavior and on Meri's lack of boundaries, feels too preordained. But Miller's incisive portrait of the complex inner lives of her characters and her sharp manner of taking them through conflicts make for an intense read." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"It was probably inevitable that Sue Miller, a gifted storyteller, would eventually unleash her talents on the topic of political marriage. As Miller explained recently in an interview with NPR's Linda Wertheimer, she has long been intrigued by the dynamics of such marriages, particularly those in which a wife's loyalty seems to outlast her husband's worthiness. Politics breeds the sacrificial wife..." Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review)
Review:
"Miller brings into stark yet uplifting relief the limitations of morality when confronted with love." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"[An] incandescent tale of betrayal and the perpetual divide between men and women, and a galvanizing novel of life's imperative to use yourself up." Booklist
Review:
"The carnal twist Miller ultimately devises to bring the narrative to a head is more puzzling than plausible....As she has repeatedly demonstrated, the variety of ways people find to connect with one another beggars the imagination. Though apparently not hers. (Grade: B)" Entertainment Weekly
Review:
"[A] rich, elegantly plotted tale of two women's — and two generations' — experiences of marriage and motherhood....It's intentionally ambiguous: both bright and dark, celebratory and desolate. Nothing at all like a Lifetime Channel movie, but a lot like real life." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review:
"[A] fast and fascinating read, a provocative look at the construction of the American family and the institution of marriage. Miller's characters are haunting, their actions unforgettable." Rocky Mountain News
Synopsis:
The author of the iconic The Good Mother and the bestselling While I Was Gone takes readers deep into the private lives of women with this mesmerizing portrait of two marriages, exposed in all their shame and imperfection and in their obdurate, unyielding love.
About the Author
Sue Miller is the best-selling author of the novels Lost in the Forest, The World Below, While I Was Gone, The Distinguished Guest, For Love, Family Pictures, and The Good Mother; the story collection Inventing the Abbotts; and the memoir The Story of My Father. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
-
beccasbookstack, April 9, 2008 (view all comments by beccasbookstack)
This is a ultimately a novel about marriage and relationships, and the mysterious bond that keeps a couple together. In her trademark style, Miller gets to the heart of all the emotions of her characters, and reveals some surprising truths about the nature of love in all its stages.
The Senator's Wife is a novel that provokes strong feelings in it's readers, and one that will leave you thinking about its characters for a long time after you've closed the cover.
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Laurie Blum, March 9, 2008 (view all comments by Laurie Blum)
In my "first chapter of married life," I was a political spouse and oh, can I ever commiserate with main character Delia Naughton in Sue Miller's "The Senator's Wife!" This author's keen descriptions of highs, lows, infidelity, friendship, moving on, Washington DC life & death are precise, insightful and make for a good read.
View all 2 comments
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780307264206
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Knopf Publishing Group
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Contemporary Women
- Subject:
- Marriage
- Subject:
- Married people
- Copyright:
- 2008
- Publication Date:
- January 2008
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 305
- Dimensions:
- 9.54x6.62x1.22 in. 1.33 lbs.
