While I Was Gone

Somewhere along the way, Sue Miller got bracketed in with mom novelists. To me, that category also includes Anne Tyler, Ann Patchett and and some other Ann(e)s, and it’s not derogatory- it just means your linen wearing, cabernet swilling, Duolingo class takin’ mom will cry all over the book on vacation. And I want her recs!!! When I got this book from a hotel lending library when I was fifteen- it’s about a married woman being brought back together with a mysterious man from her Bohemian past, who may or may not have played a hand in her best friend’s death- I found it sophisticated and horny and kind of cutting edge, and it made me see my parents as people with big lives that had come before me. If you loved The Secret History but you also like fare that’s a little more straight forwardly dramatic and a little less opaque, grab it.