TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Explorations Of Shame, Boundaries Rescue 'Wife'

ADVERTISEMENT

By ANDREA BRUNAIS

Published: January 13, 2008

"The Senator's Wife," by Sue Miller (Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95)

A large first printing, an 11-city author tour and advertising in The New York Times signal a best seller in the making with Sue Miller's latest novel. The publisher calls her a "mesmerizing storyteller," but many readers may find her a workmanlike storyteller, with prose that advances the story but rarely produces a line to be savored and recalled.

The story itself is minimalist: Two women become neighbors in a small town and, over the months, their lives intersect. Their homes are attached, duplex style, but are large and elegant, befitting the senator's wife, who lives alone, and Meri, the new neighbor with the upwardly mobile husband.

An emphasis on manners and daily living makes you think of the old public television saga "Upstairs, Downstairs," although in this case the architecture is side-by-side and the plot belongs to a Lifetime TV movie.

You can almost see Lindsay Wagner - playing the senator's wife, Delia, at middle age - looking pensively into the mirror as her philandering husband bends down next to her, "his arms making a frame around her, his hands on her elbows. Then he stood up and was gone from the glass, off to his closet. All Delia could see behind her was their empty bed. After a moment, she leaned forward and began to fuss with her hair."

Those are probably three of the more action-packed sentences in the book. The story is told from Delia's and Meri's alternating viewpoints, and Miller's characters do things such as "visualize," "imagine," "think," "decide," "assume," "suppose," "guess" and "wonder." They also write letters and plan meals. At one point, Delia wonders about her daughter's wondering about her mother's life. That's a powerful lot of wondering.

You may enjoy this book if you like to read about the lives of families in politics or if you enjoy a slow pace while exploring concepts such as marriage, friendship, loss and betrayal. Miller brings to life the tall, sexy, tomboyish, 37-year-old Meri and her professor husband, Nathan. She also animates Delia, a septuagenarian when the book begins, a woman of letters, loyalty and love.

Her husband's infidelities long ago shattered their marriage. Next-door neighbor Meri understands more than she should about those long-ago escapades, especially the senator's romp with his daughter's best friend and roommate. The secret of Meri's special knowledge is but a prelude to another act she conceals from Delia, an act that shatters the friendship.

What is love? When does betrayal occur? Can insecurities be tamed, or will they triumph? Explorations of shame, compromise and boundaries rescue "The Senator's Wife" from being merely prosaic, giving this novel a place alongside Miller's previous works, such as "The Good Mother" and "While I Was Gone."

Andrea Brunais is a freelance writer living in Tampa and West Virginia.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT