Miller, Sue

(US, 1943– )

Miller's first novel, The Good Mother (1986), is the story of a child-custody battle lost by the mother due to a brief but, in the eyes of the court, damning incident between her child and her partner. Miller's later novels tend to revolve around similar unexpected but inevitable events and their consequences, like the tragic death of the young au pair in For Love (1993), which tells the story of a woman who leaves her husband because she misses the romantic love she no longer feels for him. In While I was Gone (1998) Jo Becker, a successful, happily married vet with three children reviews her past when Eli Mayhew appears out of it. Eli attracts her, but he is connected with the brutal murder which quashed her hippie illusions. In The Distinguished Guest (1995) an elderly writer with Parkinson's disease must look at her life again as she goes to live with her son and his wife.

Ellen Gilchrist, Alison Lurie  AT