Monogamy

Summary (from the publisher): Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years. A golden couple, their effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of friends and acquaintances. Graham is a bookseller, and a large, gregarious man with large appetites—a lover of life, curious, eager to please, 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. After a six-year lull, she is about to have her first gallery show and is worried that the best years of her career may be behind her. They have two children; Sarah, the adult child of Annie and Graham, lives in San Francisco, and Lucas, Graham’s son with his first wife Frieda, works in New York. Though Frieda is an integral part of this far-flung, loving family, Annie is confident in the knowledge that she is Graham’s last and greatest love.

When Graham suddenly dies, Annie is lost without this man whose enormous presence seemed to dominate their lives together. What is the point of going on, she wonders, without him?

Soon after Graham’s death, as she is trying to pick up the pieces of her life, Annie makes a shocking discovery. Shortly before his death, Graham had been unfaithful, involved in an impulsive, brief affair he was trying to end. Confronted by his infidelity, she spirals into darkness wondering if she truly knew the man who loved her.

A tender, timeless novel that probes the heart of every committed relationship—how well do we know, can we ever know, the people we love—Monogamy is a mesmerizing portrait of a family and the secrets they keep from one another. As Sue Miller contemplates the imponderable, she reflects on the transformative power of memory, and the triumph of love over death itself. Beautiful, wise, and moving, Monogamy confirms her place as one of the most distinguished and extraordinary writers at work today.

Review: I received an advance reader's edition of this novel from HarperCollins. 

With amazing complexity, Sue Miller draws her reader into the very heart of a family, which is anchored by the thirty year marriage between Annie and Graham. When Graham dies unexpectedly, Annie's understanding of who her husband was and what their marriage meant is challenged by the revelation that Graham was unfaithful shortly before his death. With a long shared history, every family is complex and layered and this novel so beautifully captures the particular connections and secrets of Annie and Graham's family, which includes their adult daughter Sarah and Graham's adult son Lucas from his first marriage to Frieda, who remains a close member of the family. 

This was a beautiful, introspective novel. Miller's true strength as a writer is her character development; each of the characters in this story are not only beautifully described but fully realized with complex relationships and layers of history and feelings and interactions that feel true to life, deeply personal, and recognizable. In addition to being a depiction of a marriage and a family, this novel is also an insightful contemplation of the effects of time on our understanding, our emotional healing, and perspective. Annie's love is shattered first by grief and then by anger and betrayal but with time, love triumphs and she is able to once again remember Graham with fondness. 

I do think Graham gets off fairly easily in this novel (aside from dying, of course). He is described as needy and self-absorbed and is repeatedly unfaithful to both his first and second wives. Yet ultimately his family concludes that he just couldn't help himself and should be forgiven because it was just part of his character. Of course it made for a much more satisfactory conclusion for Annie and the family that her feelings on Graham evolve, but it does seem to give him a pass for a lifetime of poor behavior.

I did love the inclusion of the whole family dynamics into this novel, even though the majority of the book focuses on Annie and Graham. Frieda's complex relationship with her ex-husband were particularly interesting, as were Lucas's wife's perspective as someone who married into a rather unconventional family dynamic. 

Stars: 4