If you have a lot in common with the narrator (professional class woman/vaguely dissatisfied with everything), AND you don't like to think while you read, you may enjoy this book.

Normally, I would give a book 2 stars just for being able to reach people (which this does), but I can't because it was full of pretentious language and meandering descriptions/anecdotes which didn't really contribute to the plot or the characters. Also, it was poorly researched.

If you like reading about somewhat depressing family life and relationships, I recommend reading something by Ann Tyler instead (I actually don't like her either, but she's good at what she does.)The Amateur Marriage (Tyler, Anne (Large Print))

This book grips you page after page. A book for all who have memories that harry or haunt, who have secrets they don't know how to tell or integrate into their lives, who wonder who people think they are and wonder who they are themselves. Simply one of the best books I've read on working through and integrating life's trials. Not an answer, but a hopeful pointer in the right direction. Past and present histories beautifully woven. Characters you care about, feel you know. Scenes that are real, sometimes frighteningly so. A book you won't forget.

Occasionally I pick up the books my wife's book club has been reading, and I've enjoyed some of their selections. Not this time.

It was impossible to feel anything but dislike for Jo, the main character. She's just your typical self-absorbed Boomer baggage from her wild past. For 20-plus years, she's had a nauseatingly perfect life, with her little Monday adventures with her husband and her steady veterinarian practice. Even her ne'er do well daughter who is a roadie with a skanky rock band just happens to have the talent and soul to be a great singer herself. And the daughter is going to make it big in NYC as a singer and model. Spare me.

Then, just as Jo is having her midlife crisis, a man from her past (who she once saw naked!) appears. Predictably, she thrills at the touch of his arm. It's an arm with much more strength and power than the arm of her thin, pale, angular husband. Jo and Eli meet a few times, go over the murder of their former housemate, and .... [not gonna spoil it].

Here's the really weird part. Jo's descriptions of scenes of everyday life are wonderfully accurate. The author has a flair for noting how someone leans against a fireplace mantle, or what it's like to walk a dog late at night. But these moments of clarity are merely jarring in a book that is so full of baby boomer cliches.

Try Sue Miller's other books, or read Rabid: A Novel by T.K. Kenyon or Bee Season: A Novel by Myla Goldberg.

I'm too young and too foreign to bring much to this book, but you shouldn't have to bring a similar history to enjoy and understand a book. I don't think I ever will understand why Americans in the 60's and 70's were so obsessed with very misrepresented Indian culture. The details seemed disjointed, and the culture of "free love" and bohemian living is so different from the type of world that I grew up in.

Beyond the setting and premise, the main character Jo Becker seems like a whiner who is always longing for something better than she's got. The ending was unsatisfying and unsettling, but not in a good way. My book club fantasized about more satisfying endings instead of discussing the book itself.

Sorry.

Minna

I was really disappointed in this book and reminded not to assume a book is good because it has a lot of blurbs. This seemed more like a first novel to me. While it contained some scenes and snippets that were well-written, they seemed forced together. I never believed what the narrator was feeling towards her old housemate and it didn't help that he sounded like a jerk the whole time anyway. Instead of the story flowing, I felt that the author just wrote her way out of each situation. Really not good, and I was disappointed that I used up a couple hours of my life reading it.

I absolutely hated this book. Jo is just a selfish pig. She runs away from her husband and family and doesn't even extend them the common courtesy you would give a stranger. Then all is forgotten and forgiven because she married a minister and became a vet?? Yeah, sure, until she reverts to type and is again ready to deceive her family. What a waste of time -- I only finished the book because I wanted to know where this sorry tale was heading.

Although feeling slightly odd and lonely since the last of her three daughters left home, Jo Becker has to admit she's got a great life. Her husband is loving and supportive, they have a wonderful old New England home, and she's a successful veterinarian with her own practice.

Before this settled, familiar life, however, Jo had another identity. For nearly a year, she was Licia Stead, a waitress living in a communal house in Cambridge. On the run from an unhappy marriage, Jo felt she'd finally found her true self in the rundown old house, filled with the gaiety and noise of her eclectic housemates.

One horrible evening, Jo comes home from work to find the bloody body of Dana, her housemate and friend, brutally murdered just minutes before. Anguished and horrified, she and the others are forced to undergo police interrogation and general disapproval from the community as a whole for their unstructured lifestyle. Ultimately, the killer is never found, and Dana's death marks the end of an era. The remaining housemates each find reasons to leave, and the group disbands.

Fast forward 25 years later, when Eli Mayhew brings his dog to Jo's veterinary practice. Seeing him forces Jo to remember Dana and the life they once had. She also begins to have feelings for Eli, though they're both married to other people.

Then Jo discovers that Eli may know more about the circumstances around Dana's death than he's ever let on...

In this book, Miller's fine writing is able to convey both the image of an average small-town New England existence, as well as the hints of something darker just beneath the surface.

This was a good book- not my favorite, but kept my interest. The characters never seemed real to me nor did the their actions.
Not a waste of my time, but a bit disappointing.

Daniel, a pastor, is happy. His wife Jo, a veterinarian, is the narrator. The couple has three daughters, Sadie and the twins, Cass and Nora. Jo learns that Eli Mayhew, a fellow commune-dweller from long ago, is living in their town.

The story flashes back to the commune where Jo used a fictitious name. Eli had been the only serious one there, a scientist. Crime visited the commune, interrupting youthful activities, youthful development. Eli's return marks for Jo a time of surging memories of the tragedy at the commune. Daniel is surprised at Jo's reaction. He is consumed with his own pastoral duties centering on the death of one of his parishioners.

After a family Thanksgiving and a party given afterwards to ease familial tension, Jo realizes she has been collecting a bagful of petty grievances against Daniel. When Daniel and Jo go out to dinner with Jean and Eli Mayhew, Jo sees that Daniel doesn't care for Eli. Daniel talks about soul and Eli about neurons. Daniel explains to Eli that there has to be a desire for God to become a believer. Eli thinks that Daniel won't accept the implications of science in his thinking.

In the plot turns here there are a number of surprises for the reader. In the end the most important area covered by Sue Miller in this novel is the difficulty everyone has of accepting and being responsible for all of the deeds and misdeeds of former selves. Events in this novel verge on the garish, but it is possible that like circumstances haunt the background of everybody.

Miller writes easily and smoothly. It is no wonder that her novels are so popular.

In While I was Gone, Sue Miller takes us deeply inside a marriage. We always are surprised when people get divorced because marriages look different from the outside than the inside. Sometimes pretty on the outside, ugly inside. With this one between a vet and a minister we go inside the very fabric. We enter the bedroom. We enter the bed, the life of the mind, the life of the body, the life of the soul, the life of the parents, and when the fraying begins, we feel it acutely, a grind against our own gears. We feel the unravelling acutely. We are never the same. Kate Gale

This book is heavy with angst, I suppose. I suppose, I did not care for any of the characters. It was actually depressing, I suppose. All the characters sounded alike to me. How many times can one say, "I suppose," in a novel. Well, I wished I had started counting from the beginning, because there must be over 100 "I supposes." It was so distracting!!! After a while it was about how many "I supposes," I could find in one page. And all the characters spoke the same. And Daniel, please for being a minister he sure knows how to meet out punishment, for a crime that never even happened. Oh my God. If you have limited time, skip this book!

This is a page turner. The flawed main character is so real and so complex. When I love the first ten pages of a book I read it in one setting. Sue Miller's book had me from page one.

I will not rehash the details of this book, but I will tell you that if you have little time to read and therefore have to seek out quality literature that will allow you to escape from the daily grind and perhaps even provoke thought, this is not the book for you. There are some well-written passages in this novel, but that's about it. Like many other readers, you may want to scream about the lack of closure and the injustice of it all. That a murderer gets away with a cold, brutal killing and life goes on will be insufferable for many.

That a woman chooses without much thought to jeopardize her solid, perhaps too comfortable marriage for a relationship with a man from her past - now that could happen. Yet the question remains, do we as readers ever develop any empathy for the characters in the story? The answer in my case and in the case of many other reader-reviewers is an emphatic no.

You decide, but if you seek out memorable works you may be very disappointed in this disjointed, affected novel.

Jo Becker enters a marriage which her parents think is suitable, but which soon seems like a trap to her. She runs away to Boston and ends up living with several others her age. She loves the closeness she feels with the others in the house and the lack of responsibility in their lifestyle. When her closest friend in the house is killed, the group breaks up and they go their separate ways. She returns to her home, divorces her husband and meets Daniel whom she marries. She becomes a vet and she and Daniel become the parents of three girls. Her life is going well until one of her old housemates shows up and she feels an undeniable attraction to him, threatening everything she has come to hold dear.
I found Jo Becker to be a very unlikeable character. Her solution to any problem seemed to be to run away from it, regardless of what effect this had on anyone else. She came across as selfish and secretive, depending on the steadfastness and goodness of her husband Daniel, but not reciprocating these qualities in her relationship to him. Her housemates were equally unlikeable, totally wrapped up in themselves and doing what pleased them, again with no regard for anyone else. The author's gift seems to be in describing her characters' thoughts and actions in a way which makes them very real, but I couldn't get past the self-centeredness and lack of insight which made the main character so unlikeable and thus, so unsympathetic.

I'm trying to diversify my reading. Chose this one based solely on blurbs.

Writing is good, competent, but not magical or even making me want to anxiously flip the pages.

The character is a bit cliched...and there is too much telling and self-examination used to move the story forward.

If Miller had chosen to delve into a relationship crisis, I think Jo and Dana would have been much more interesting...much more interesting to follow and see how it resolves itself. Miller skimmed the surface of possibilities with those two, but then didn't ultimately "go there", as another reviewer said.

I read some of Miller's bio and it seems she definitely tries to write what she knows...

An okay read redeemed by good writing and a few memorable scenes.

First you get to marry a doctor, then you get bored and become a Bohemian, find some drawbacks there and so finally you get to marry somebody that understands and appreciates you. You get to take care of and understand animals as a veterinarian. But your life still seems to miss some spark and so a murder mystery is thrown into the mix. All of your friends are affiliated with Harvard, Berkeley, or some other high prestige place--no Illinois State or blue color workers for you. This was a truly awful book written for dreamy status-seekers with no empathy or understanding of the real world.

This book was in places very beautifully written but for all of that I found the heroine and the choices she made quite selfish. Here's a woman with a loving husband, a prosperous career she loves and not a worry in the world. She's willing to toss it all away because, to me, she seems either bored or regretful that her life is so easy (we should all be so lucky!). This made her very difficult to sympathize with and made me want to strangle her. I did enjoy the fact that in the end her "problem" was going to stare her in the face for a good number of years to come. Serves her right, if you ask me . . .

This is the first Sue Miller novel I have read. I picked it up from my wife's collection of unread novels when I had run out of my usual suspense/thrillers. To my surprise I found myself very quickly caught up in the story and the characters. Sue Miller is an excellent writer. She has a good eye for the details of domestic life and family dynamics which provide a good backdrop for the mysteries and secrets of vet Jo Becker. Jo is in an apparently happy marriage to Daniel, a minister. It's her second marriage. One day a friend from the past shows up as a client at her vet clinic. This leads us on a journey through Jo's memories of a time in the 60s when she escaped from her first marriage and lived in a group home/commune in Cambridge Mass. This hippy period of her life ends with the tragic murder of one of her roommates by a person or persons unknown. In the present Jo learns the identity of the killer, someone with whom she is tempted to stray until she learns his terrible secret. Jo wrestles with her conscience and reveals all to her husband who is shocked more at her intent to betray him than he is by the murderer's identity. How Jo deals with these challenges is dealt with in a well crafted way.

I highly recommend this novel.

This book is packaged and presented as a thriller novel. Raves such as `...a beautiful and frightening book, one that many readers will find difficult to forget' and `Gripping, close to the bone fiction' are printed all over the front and back covers. With this, I started reading with the expectations of a good scare.

However, as the story unfolded, I found myself breezing through the pages, hoping that the next page or chapter would finally be `scary'. So its not at all something `thrilling.'

Pace of the book is moderately dragging, picking up only ¾ of the way. I finished the book feeling initially disappointed because it did not deliver its promise of being frightening (now I know to take raves with a grain of salt). However the book overall conveyed excellent values that we can get from our life's crises.
A non-climatic plot but I appreciate the realness and consistency Sue Miller gives her characters. Jo, for example, has always been elusive, and unconsciously unable to form any extremely close relationships with anyone--not even her daughters. She is a bit of an escapist, learning early on that she can run away from her problems (as she did with her first marriage), and throughout the story, when she is faced with an issue, running away often crosses her mind. She is also perfectly human, being bored with her marriage with the town pastor, hence when Eli first came into town, she indulged herself with a few fantasies of "what if's", but never actively acted on it. She also wasn't your typical pastor's wife. She was not at all religious, didn't go to church, and did not meddle with her husband's affairs. The husband, though a pastor, wasn't spared from getting hurt and jealous, when Jo confessed that prior to Eli disclosing that he is a murderer, she was actually attracted to him. He was cold to her for weeks, and when Jo's mother had a minor accident, he suggested that Jo's going to her mother's house would do them a good break. Their 3 daughters, they all had different characters, each of them charming in their own ways, and also gave headaches in their own separate ways.

One of the story's focus, is change--the adage is true, its never too late to change. We may be affected by our past and mistakes, but we are not defined by them. From time to time, in life, we need drastic changes to get us out of a depressing situation (Jo's running away from 1st marriage). And no matter how "used to" we think we are with ourselves, we will never truly know our being unless we have been subject to certain circumstances. And that to move on, we must first forgive and accept ourselves as what we truly are.

This book can't be beat for shear character webs...it discusses so many different family relationships- such as husband/wife, mother/daughter, old flames, old friends...definitely witty and entertaining while shockingly realistic. A must read, definitely keeps you interested.

While I Was Gone, by Sue Miller, reads suspiciously like a blend of the steadily increasing numbers of this genre of WASP apologist novels. To my jaded eyes, these offensively scrupulous tales appear to be written for WASP C Average women college graduates of A plus incomes.

I am certain that many of these readers will consider themselves more well-read and better understood for having consumed a stack of this stuff by similar writers. Somehow, WASPS everywhere will feel that instead of being emotionally constipated and terminally civilized, that they are, as usual, better than everyone else who isn't like them.

The characters, including the animals, are for the most part, good-looking, privileged, educated, and eminently acceptable. Suspension of disbelief is just not happening here. This novel pays some token hommage to the strife of teenage parenting and the shoals of marriage. Yet, it remains smug and self-satisfied conveying beyond a shadow of a doubt that these superior folks are going to soldier on and become even better than they already are for having erred on the side of humanity.

Ugh! Just once it would have been nice to experience a character like Jo screaming at her minister husband Daniel to cease his sadistic sanctimonius silent cruelty and put himself in her place. Alas, no, that sort of low-class behaviour can never exist in the rarified world of the dazzlingly narcissictic humble.

I would exhort Sue Miller to redeem herself by writing about some low-born WASPS who know how to crochet toilet roll covers and make gloppy casseroles while drowning in some decently offensive hypocracy.

This book was weird in the sense that, Jo is immediately so alien yet so understandable. A complex character, she embodies the every woman, with her seemingly perfect life. But with every page you realise how much like you she really is. She feels lost in herself, and her many roles,(lifes as she calls it}she feels that each is so seperate yet so easily does she fall from one to another. Her almost reckless abandonment of one life, in her youth for another, shows an almost schizophrenic personality division. She is running away to find herself. And yet, it is not over, in her middle age, when life is seemingly blissfull, she abandons the comfortable for the danger of the known past. So simply does the story unfold, with its onion-like layers, it makes you feel that I must have seen this coming. Mid-life crisis was never so dramatic. I feel the author is trying to convey a message; that life is a complex journey that has lessons to be learnt and everything that happens has a reason, and if the lesson has not been learnt, unresolved issues will come forward to pave the way.

Honestly, being in my 20's, I really didn't think I'd be able to connect w/Jo, but in traditional Sue Miller fashion, she found a way to weave the words & create literary opertunity in which eventually you find a way to connect w/the character because eventually, you are absorbed enough into their world that you are able to see through their eyes.

I was able to experience life though the eyes of a woman who was old enough to be my own mother, & get an understanding of what life is like once your 20's, 30's & even 40's have flown by.

What I found especially intriguing about the novel was how Jo just walked away from her life one day & began another one.

This novel is chalk full of twists & turns, w/an ending that won't leave you hanging.

An odd book about a successful woman named Jo who ran into the wife of an old flame. The meeting causes her to reflect back to a time when she was young and a free-spirit living in the 1960's. At that time she lived in a house, a commune-like setting that was shared with other young people, many of whom were students. As she reflects back, she is forced to remember the murder of one of her dear friends. The murder happened in the house one nite when the friend was alone with the old flame. She now has reason to suspect the old flame... how will it be if she confronts him now?

While reading the first 50 pages or so of this one, I felt like I was reading a book for women about twenty years older than me. I felt totally disengaged, bored. The writing didn't seem to connect with me, a reader in my early thirties. The dialogue between the main character Jo and her minister husband seemed so stilted and pretentious, arguing, for example, whether the feeling she was having was "admonitory" or "premonitory." Come on, I thought, no one talks like this! I did become more interested in the story when it shifted back to her wild, hippy days living in a commune-style house while on a break from her dull, married life. Again, the ridiculous vocabulary worked its way into her characters' lines, though, which just seemed like it was used to show how smart Miller is. It just didn't ring true at all and was very distracting from the story itself. I did find myself caring about the characters and thinking about them throughout the day when I wasn't reading. The ending was disappointing and unsatisfying. While I normally like things unresolved at the end of books, this ending just seemed like a cop out. Too simple, too... I don't know what. Just not what I was hoping for. Overall, not bad, but certainly a far cry from "good."

I have to agree with reviewer Steven Becker. This was a painfully slow & laborious book. I too was drawn in by the riveting reviews, but quickly realized I had been duped. Apologies to all Sue Miller fans...she is a good writer, but this was a very slow & tedious plot line.....a big yawn for me.

I think Sue Miller is one of the finest authors out there. While not necessarily a riveting story with characters who can be categorized at unlikable, the detail in the writing--the storytelling ability--pulled me through and had me looking in the dictionary from time to time. She has an amazing vocabulary, as I've noted in all the books I've read by this author, and I find that to be enriching to the reading process. This is an excellent example of a "classy" novel. Put it on your list.

I part with the majority of reviewers of this book, who responded so favorably, and agree with reviewer EM Otis. This novel, in my opinion, grinds to a halt after the first couple chapters, which begin quite auspiciously. The impressive blurbed reviews on the book cover drew me in; I was ready to succumb. But alas, sooner than I expected, the first yawn occurred, followed by more yawns at an alarmingly increased rate. The plot, such as it was, proceeded way too slowly. I have a serious sleep disorder, and this book ultimately was more effective in addressing it than the Ambien and Benadryl I take on a regular basis. Apologies to all Sue Miller fans, but my first exposure to her work was disappointing. To all potential readers of this novel, I caution you: Do not read any portion of this book, and then drive, until a good half-hour has passed.

Anyone who has ever taken a cold hard look at their life and wondered how they ended up where they did, will love this book. It was gripping at times and the title really hit home for me.
"While I Was Gone" tells what happens when you aren't content, when you keep looking for more or different, never satisfied with what is. Being physically present in a relationship doesn't mean a thing if you're really "gone."

I thought the book was well-written but somewhat dark. Jo seemed to be afraid of any significant emotional committment throughout her life; consequently, she seemed somewhat shallow. I couldn't help wondering if she was drawn to her second husband -- a minister -- as someone 'good' who would counteract the 'bad' things that had happened during her life in Cambridge. It appeared that she just wanted a 'safe' life, a life that wouldn't make too many demands on her emotionally. I also felt that this inability to commit was probably why she became a Vet -- animals love unconditionally and require very little in return. All in all, a thought-provoking book.

Miller does a wonderful job with both plot and character development in this novel, which was a New York Times bestseller and a Ballantine Reader's Circle book. The protagonist, Jo, is finely drawn and very complex. Sometimes I empathized and identified with her and other times I thought she was immensely selfish.

A basic plot sketch - Basically, Jo ran away from her "safe" life as a married teacher when she was young, opting instead for life in a house full of other young people who didn't know about her past. This part of the book is described in a free, easy style that I really enjoyed. Although I didn't grow up during the sixties, I felt as though Miller gave a good picture of what it might have been like. Life in the house ends with a violent crime, and the "friends" scatter to the winds to live their separate lives. Jo later re-marries, has three daughters, and enjoys a fulfilling job. Her life seems almost idyllic. Then her past comes back to torment her in the form of an old friend (and her overactive memory/imagination). It is her own selfishness, however, that causes the most trouble for her in the end.

I really identified with Jo's intermittent feelings of restlessness; she feels sometimes as if she wants to live more fully, take more risks, to feel more free and passionate about her life. She yearns for the way she felt during her youth. I think everyone feels this way sometimes. But Jo decides to pursue this longing the wrong way, in a way that causes pain to those she loves. I find it interesting that she rarely stops to think about how her words and actions will make her devoted husband feel.

Despite not feeling totally sympathetic to Jo's character, I loved the book. The characters seem very real, and I enjoyed reading about them. Based on this novel, I'll definitely read more Miller.