"Riveting . . . While I Was Gone [celebrates] what is impulsive in
human nature."
-The New York Times
"Miller weaves her themes of secrecy, betrayal, and forgiveness into a
narrative that shines."
-Time
Jo Becker has every reason to be content. She has three dynamic
daughters, a loving marriage, and a rewarding career. But she feels a
sense of unease. Then an old housemate reappears, sending Jo back to a
distant past when she lived in a communal house in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Drawn deeper into her memories of that fateful summer in
1968, Jo begins to obsess about the person she once was. As she is
pulled farther from her present life, her husband, and her world, Jo
struggles against becoming enveloped by her past and its dark secret.
"[While I Was Gone] swoops gracefully between the past and the
present, between a woman's complex feelings about her husband and her
equally complex fantasies-and fears-about another man. . . . [Miller
writes] well about the trials of faith."
-The New York Times Book Review
"Quietly gripping . . . Jo shines steadily as the flawed and thoroughly
modern heroine. As in her 1986 novel, The Good Mother, Miller shows how
impulses can fracture the family."
-USA Today
"Marvelous . . . poignant . . . powerful."
-Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer
