While I Was Gone

Abridged
Author: Sue Miller
Narrator: Blair Brown
Genres: Fiction
Publisher: Random House (Audio)
Date: May 2000
Length: 5 hours
Ratings:
  • Book Rating: 3/5
Formats:
  • CD
  • iPod

Overview

A decade ago she put a face on every mother's worst nightmare with her phenomenal bestseller The Good Mother. Now, Sue Miller delivers a spellbinding AudioBook 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.

Reviews (13)

while I was gone

Written by Anonymous on March 14th, 2008

  • Book Rating: 3/5

I enjoyed the story. though at times it seemed disconnected. A lesson in trust.

While I Was Gone

Written by Anonymous on October 28th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 1/5

I thought the book was a complete downer...a woman with a perfectly good life almost throws it away for a fling and she expects her husband to understand the termoil that goes along with why she didn't go through with the affair. I would not recommend the book.

While I was Gone

Written by Anonymous on August 7th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 4/5

This was a difficult book to read, but the reader made it very interesting!

While I Was Gone

Written by Sara from Golden, CO on November 3rd, 2006

  • Book Rating: 3/5

There are two exquisite moments in this book and both involve Jo and her mother, just a beautiful interaction between them. The rest of the novel seemed to be like one of those movies on Lifetime Channel where people, including the main character, seem to be out of touch with reality.

While I Was Gone

Written by Paula Gutierrez from Winchester, VA on October 19th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 3/5

The main character lacked substance and intellect in her decision making, but it was a decent listen.

Good One

Written by Anonymous from Franconia, NH on August 27th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 4/5

Blair Brown is a great "storyteller". Would recommend to family and friends.

While I was gone

Written by Carmen Gabaldon on June 22nd, 2006

  • Book Rating: 4/5

This was not a book I would have normally chosen, but I really enjoyed it and will be listening to other Sue Miller books

While I was Gone

Written by Connie Harding on June 16th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 4/5

I enjoyed this book. It was interesting and unpredictable. I would recommend this one to my family and friends.

while i was gone

Written by Gladys Colon from Englewood, FL on June 14th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 4/5

this book is short but good very god is interesting and very placere to listen is very good you will have a good time thanks gladys

While I Was Gone

Written by Ronswife in PA on November 17th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 4/5

I enjoyed this book. It had a very interesting ending. I look forward to reading more of Ms. Miller's books.

Author Details

Author Details

Miller, Sue

" Sue Miller was born in Chicago in 1943, the second of four children in an academic and ecclesiastical family. She grew up reading, writing, and dancing to 50's rhythm and blues in Hyde Park, and went to college at Harvard. She was married at twenty, shortly after she graduated, and held a series of odd jobs until her son Ben was born in 1968. She separated from her first husband in 1971, and for thirteen years was a single parent in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working in day care, taking in roomers, studying the piano, and writing with increasing focus.

Sue Miller?s first story was published in 1981. Since then, she has taught in various writing programs in the Boston area. In 1983-84 Sue Miller had a Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe, which led her to the publication of her first novel, THE GOOD MOTHER. She finished the novel in 1985, it was published 1986, and was quickly followed by a collection of short stories. In the 90?s she published FAMILY PICTURES, FOR LOVE, THE DISTINGUISHED GUEST, and WHILE I WAS GONE. She is currently writing a memoir about her father?s death from Alzheimer?s disease.

Sue Miller was married in 1985 to the writer Douglas Bauer. They are now divorced. After living in Boston for 12 years, Sue Miller returned this spring to Cambridge, which she refers to as the land of many bookstores. "