The Senator's Wife

De: Sue Miller

Narrado por: Blair Brown

Once again Sue Miller takes us deep into the private lives of women with this mesmerizing portrait of two marriages exposed in all their shame and imperfection, and in their obdurate, unyielding love.

Meri is newly married, pregnant, and standing on the cusp of her life as a wife and mother, recognizing with some terror the gap between reality and expectation. Delia Naughton–wife of the two-term liberal senator Tom Naughton–is Meri’s new neighbor in the adjacent New England town house. Delia’s husband’s chronic infidelity has been an open secret in Washington circles, but despite the complexity of their relationship, the bond between them remains strong. What keeps people together, even in the midst of profound betrayal? How can a journey imperiled by, and sometimes indistinguishable from, compromise and disappointment culminate in healing and grace? Delia and Meri find themselves leading strangely parallel lives, both reckoning with the contours and mysteries of marriage, one refined and abraded by years of complicated intimacy, the other barely begun.

Here are all the things for which Sue Miller has always been beloved–the complexity of experience precisely rendered, the richness of character and emotion, the superb economy of style–fused with an utterly engrossing story.©2008 Sue Miller; (P)2008 Random House, Inc.

abrupt ending

good characters but a very abrupt ending. waited for more of a character connection or growth

Good

It wasn’t my favorite sue miller novel, probably not even top 5. However if I listened to this book by itself with no reference to her other work id be content with it. It’s a good story and is told well and is engaging.

One of my favorite books!

Love, love, love this book! I read it when it first came out and knew I had to listen to it as well. Blair Brown is a fantastic narrator. Loved the characters. I almost felt sorry for Deliah, but was annoyed that she let herself be a doormat for years to her Senator husband. Meri proved herself to be a spineless woman who snooped through Deliah's life. I would of thought that Meri's husband would have ditched her, but he stayed married to her...great book!

Really Engaging

I loved this book. It was similar in feel to "The Corrections" by Jonathan Fraizer.

The characters, ALL of the characters, while not always 'likable' are certainly human and behave in ways we have all witnessed people behave. Even the end, while I too was disappointed, it was, as the entire book was, true to life. I would have liked to have it end differently, but this book was telling its own story, and its characters had their own personalities and weaknesses. To have another kind of ending would not have been true to the characters or in keeping with the story. Life, as they say, is not fair.

Subject: Marriage, complex and non uniform.

This story is going to linger with me for a while. The author's chapters on infidelity are heart wrenching. I never foresaw the twist well, not until it was very near.

I liked both female leads, sometime we're so quick to judge others' marriages. But marriages are complex, none are the same and yet people love to judge them through some uniform code. I liked the looking glass Miller provided into these two marriages. But it is NOT a feel good book. Read at your own risk to your heart.