Sue Miller

Several years ago Sue Miller was a guest at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival and, because I had made the contact with her, I got to share the stage and introduce her to the crowd. I was so excited - let's face it, most librarians are author stalkers to some degree, but once we meet them it's easy to become tongue tied. In this case though, she was the one who seemed reticent to strike up a conversation. I would almost describe my impression of her as melancholy. Interestingly, that's how her press photo appears as well, and readers familiar with her tremendous output will likely admit that there's nothing uplifting about it.

The Lake Shore Limited is no exception. I've read so many fabulous books, one right after the other lately, that I almost didn't stick with this novel because I'd been spoiled. It didn't grab me right out of the gate. The atmosphere of sadness is palpable yet it draws the reader in. One feels the need to pursue these characters as they try to navigate life as normal, functioning people even though one senses the turmoil roiling right beneath the surfaces.

Leslie and Pierce are in Boston for the opening of a new play written by their dear friend Billy, Wilhelmina, Gertz. The play, The Lake Shore Limited, is about a man who is in anguish over his plans to leave his wife until he hears that she may have been the victim of a terrorist bombing of a train in Chicago. The guilt that he feels about ending their relationship is mitigated by the dream of a future with his lover. Until, that is, she voices the relief that he fleetingly feels when he realizes that his wife Charlotte's death would release him from having to tell her he's leaving.

Once he hears the ugliness of his secret thoughts come from the mouth of his lover, he can no longer even look at her. Truth has broken the spell and he will now wait for word of his wife's life or death with the realization that he will always be with her. As the novel progresses we realize that Billy's play was written from the depth of her own conflicted feelings about the death of her lover, Gus, who was Leslie's baby brother and how Gus's death has created an uncomfortably unbreakable bond between Billy and Leslie.

If this sounds a tad complicated then you're right, it is. That's what gives this novel its supreme strength. People are complicated - relationships are complicated - and Miller is supremely gifted at exposing what goes on beneath our surfaces in a painfully honest way. Her description of the day when Billy realizes that Gus must have been on one of the planes that was flown into the World Trade Center is a masterful piece of work. The sense of dislocation, confusion, loss of time - the shock of understanding how little she actually knew this man/boy she was living with - is devastating.

I had planned to go into a rant about 9/11 - about how people can't let it rest, put it behind them, and how this latest controversy of the Islamic Cultural Center to be built nearby is merely an excuse for politicians to make points with their constituents and fall all over each other to see who can be uglier. Believe it or not, reading Miller's book this morning before work (rather than the newspaper) has actually calmed me down on that subject. Plus, I started reading David Remnick's book, The Bridge, about President Obama back when I still hoped he could be all things to all people.

I'm also rereading the fabulous Olive Kitteridge, taking notes for an upcoming book discussion, the first of our "season" here in Estero, Florida. My starred review of Philip Roth's latest novel, Nemesis, appeared in the August edition of Library Journal - check it out!