A New York Times Notable Book - NPR Best Book of the Year -
People magazine Top Ten Books of the Year - BookPage Best Book of
the Year - Good Housekeeping Best Book of the Year
"A sensual and perceptive novel. . . . With humor and humanity, Miller
resists the simple scorned-wife story and instead crafts a revelatory
tale of the complexities--and the absurdities--of love, infidelity, and
grief." --O, the Oprah Magazine
A brilliantly insightful novel, engrossing and haunting, about
marriage, love, family, happiness and sorrow, from New York Times
bestselling author Sue Miller.
Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years. Their
seemingly effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of
friends and acquaintances. By all appearances, they are a golden couple.
Graham is a bookseller, a big, gregarious man with large
appetites--curious, eager to please, a lover of life, and the convivial
host of frequent, lively parties at his and Annie's comfortable house in
Cambridge. Annie, more reserved and introspective, is a photographer.
She is about to have her first gallery show after a six-year lull and is
worried that the best years of her career may be behind her. They have
two adult children; Lucas, Graham's son with his first wife, Frieda,
works in New York. Annie and Graham's daughter, Sarah, lives in San
Francisco. Though Frieda is an integral part of this far-flung, loving
family, Annie feels confident in the knowledge that she is Graham's last
and greatest love.
When Graham suddenly dies--this man whose enormous presence has seemed
to dominate their lives together--Annie is lost. What is the point of
going on, she wonders, without him?
Then, while she is still mourning Graham intensely, she discovers a
ruinous secret, one that will spiral her into darkness and force her to
question whether she ever truly knew the man who loved her.
