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The Lake Shore Limited
Four unforgettable characters beckon you into this spellbinding new novel from Sue Miller, the author of 2008’s heralded best seller The Senator’s Wife. First among them is Wilhelmina—Billy—Gertz, as small as a child, fiercely independent, powerfully committed to her work as a playwright. The story itself centers on The Lake Shore Limited—a play Billy has written about an imagined terrorist bombing of that train as it pulls into Union Station in Chicago, and about a man waiting to hear the fate of his estranged wife, who is traveling on it. Billy had waited in just such a way on 9/11 to hear whether her lover, Gus, was on one of the planes used in the attack.
The novel moves from the snow-filled woods of Vermont to the rainy brick sidewalks of Boston as the lives of the other characters intersect and interweave with Billy’s: Leslie, Gus’s sister, still driven by grief years after her brother’s death; Rafe, the actor who rises to greatness in a performance inspired by a night of incandescent lovemaking; and Sam, a man irresistibly drawn to Billy after he sees the play that so clearly displays the terrible conflicts and ambivalence of her situation.
How Billy has come to create the play out of these emotions, how it is then created anew on the stage, how the performance itself touches and changes the other characters’ lives—these form the thread that binds them all together and drives the novel compulsively forward.
A powerful love story; a mesmerizing tale of entanglements, connections, and inconsolable losses; a marvelous reflection on the meaning of grace and the uses of sorrow, in life and in art: The Lake Shore Limited is Sue Miller at her dazzling best.
The novel moves from the snow-filled woods of Vermont to the rainy brick sidewalks of Boston as the lives of the other characters intersect and interweave with Billy’s: Leslie, Gus’s sister, still driven by grief years after her brother’s death; Rafe, the actor who rises to greatness in a performance inspired by a night of incandescent lovemaking; and Sam, a man irresistibly drawn to Billy after he sees the play that so clearly displays the terrible conflicts and ambivalence of her situation.
How Billy has come to create the play out of these emotions, how it is then created anew on the stage, how the performance itself touches and changes the other characters’ lives—these form the thread that binds them all together and drives the novel compulsively forward.
A powerful love story; a mesmerizing tale of entanglements, connections, and inconsolable losses; a marvelous reflection on the meaning of grace and the uses of sorrow, in life and in art: The Lake Shore Limited is Sue Miller at her dazzling best.
270 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
192 people are currently reading
2467 people want to read
About the author
Sue Miller
58 books934 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Sue Miller is an American novelist and short story writer who has written a number of best-selling novels. She graduated from Radcliffe College.
Sue Miller is an American novelist and short story writer who has written a number of best-selling novels. She graduated from Radcliffe College.
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November 28, 2013
There are several contenders (Anita Shreve, Gail Godwin), but Sue Miller might be the best poster child for the poison condescension bestowed by the term "women's literature." She didn't publish her first novel, "The Good Mother" (1986), until she was in her 40s, but since then she's been prolific and popular (another mark against her), writing about families and marriages, infidelity and divorce -- what we call "literary fiction" when men write about those things. Last year, a grudging review of "The Senator's Wife" in That Other East Coast Newspaper claimed that Miller's novels "feature soap-opera plots," a mischaracterization broad enough to apply to any story that doesn't involve space travel or machine guns.
Miller's exquisite new novel, "The Lake Shore Limited," is so sophisticated and thoughtful that it should either help redeem the term "women's literature" or free her from it once and for all. Several times in these pages someone refers to the relentless psychological analysis found in Henry James's novels, which seems a far more relevant influence than TV soap operas. In fact, "The Lake Shore Limited" may be the closest thing we'll get to a James response to 9/11: no drama, no crisis, barely any action at all -- just a deeply affecting examination of the thoughts and feelings of four people still moving in the shadow of that tragedy.
The novel has an unusual structure: In the opening section, Leslie has traveled to Boston with her husband to see a new play called "The Lake Shore Limited." The playwright, a younger woman nicknamed Billy, was once the lover of Leslie's brother, and the two women have remained friends -- distant friends -- since he died in the Sept. 11 attacks six years earlier. Miller teases out the complicated feelings of affection and resistance between Leslie and Billy a little, but then the curtain rises, literally, and the play begins.
What follows for the next 16 pages is a stilted but oddly compelling drama about an intellectual man confronted by the news that his wife has just been killed in a Chicago subway bombing. The play consists of several angry, intense conversations. Enflamed with grief, the man's son accuses his father of being grateful that he's free now to remarry, but then the man's mistress denounces him as unfeeling and cruel. "It doesn't matter to you if [she's] dead, it doesn't matter to you," one of the characters says, half in amazement, half in accusation. "You're so . . . detached." Everyone is baffled by this new widower's disaffection, his mysterious blankness in the face of a horrible tragedy.
Miller doesn't reproduce the script entirely, but she provides a vivid experience of the play, along with the quality of the actors' performances and Leslie's troubled reaction in the audience. "Where did it come from?" she wonders. "So much in this play, as in others she'd seen, came from things she knew about Billy, about her life. Why would she have imagined a thing like this? It seems so ugly, so awful, really."
The animus behind this play remains the heart of the novel, and if you commit to the considerable intellectual and emotional demands of "The Lake Shore Limited," it'll disrupt the equilibrium of your life, too. The story moves back and forth in time but always returns to that performance, ending when the theatrical run draws to a close a few weeks later. Leslie can't get the play out of her mind and resists what it might suggest about Billy's relationship with her late brother. Billy, meanwhile, protests too much that the play contains no personal revelations. "Please, please, give me some credit," she begs a friend. "Give the imagination some credit. No one really does. No one believes in it anymore. Everything always has to be autobiographical, somehow." But the more we see of her past life with Leslie's charming brother and the more she struggles to articulate her response to his death, the more we understand what inspired this drama. "People think they know what you're feeling," she tells a friend. "What you must be feeling. And because it's easier not to expose yourself, what you're truly feeling, you don't disabuse them. You go through the motions for them. That's why, I think, I wanted to write the play -- about a man who doesn't feel what he's supposed to."
Miller's insistent examination of that predicament grows increasingly profound and unsettling. The most moving response to the play comes from the lead actor, a man named Rafe, whose wife is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. Assuming the play is only about 9/11, he doesn't realize at first how much it resonates with the dark tones of his own life. Flashbacks take us through Rafe's marriage, the grinding cruelty of his wife's illness and the ineffable mixture of joy and sorrow that characterizes their time together as the end approaches. In one of several catch-your-breath scenes, his wife tells him, "It must be awful to sometimes wish me dead." Dropping a statement like that into a moment of real intimacy while helping us understand how it can be both true and deceptive is the miracle of "The Lake Shore Limited."
This is emotional terrain some people won't feel comfortable in, but it's gorgeously drawn and told with stark honesty. The theatrical performance serves as a surprisingly effective stage for Miller's rueful reflection on what actors we all are -- and how unfairly we convict ourselves for the impurity of our affection. Who doesn't, after all, "wish to imagine what life could be, how it could change, if you were unencumbered"? That doesn't make us murderers or monsters, but it leaves us stuck, like Billy, "trying to calibrate her grief." There's some comfort in realizing the universality of that horrible calculation, and that's just one of the rewards of this novel.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
Miller's exquisite new novel, "The Lake Shore Limited," is so sophisticated and thoughtful that it should either help redeem the term "women's literature" or free her from it once and for all. Several times in these pages someone refers to the relentless psychological analysis found in Henry James's novels, which seems a far more relevant influence than TV soap operas. In fact, "The Lake Shore Limited" may be the closest thing we'll get to a James response to 9/11: no drama, no crisis, barely any action at all -- just a deeply affecting examination of the thoughts and feelings of four people still moving in the shadow of that tragedy.
The novel has an unusual structure: In the opening section, Leslie has traveled to Boston with her husband to see a new play called "The Lake Shore Limited." The playwright, a younger woman nicknamed Billy, was once the lover of Leslie's brother, and the two women have remained friends -- distant friends -- since he died in the Sept. 11 attacks six years earlier. Miller teases out the complicated feelings of affection and resistance between Leslie and Billy a little, but then the curtain rises, literally, and the play begins.
What follows for the next 16 pages is a stilted but oddly compelling drama about an intellectual man confronted by the news that his wife has just been killed in a Chicago subway bombing. The play consists of several angry, intense conversations. Enflamed with grief, the man's son accuses his father of being grateful that he's free now to remarry, but then the man's mistress denounces him as unfeeling and cruel. "It doesn't matter to you if [she's] dead, it doesn't matter to you," one of the characters says, half in amazement, half in accusation. "You're so . . . detached." Everyone is baffled by this new widower's disaffection, his mysterious blankness in the face of a horrible tragedy.
Miller doesn't reproduce the script entirely, but she provides a vivid experience of the play, along with the quality of the actors' performances and Leslie's troubled reaction in the audience. "Where did it come from?" she wonders. "So much in this play, as in others she'd seen, came from things she knew about Billy, about her life. Why would she have imagined a thing like this? It seems so ugly, so awful, really."
The animus behind this play remains the heart of the novel, and if you commit to the considerable intellectual and emotional demands of "The Lake Shore Limited," it'll disrupt the equilibrium of your life, too. The story moves back and forth in time but always returns to that performance, ending when the theatrical run draws to a close a few weeks later. Leslie can't get the play out of her mind and resists what it might suggest about Billy's relationship with her late brother. Billy, meanwhile, protests too much that the play contains no personal revelations. "Please, please, give me some credit," she begs a friend. "Give the imagination some credit. No one really does. No one believes in it anymore. Everything always has to be autobiographical, somehow." But the more we see of her past life with Leslie's charming brother and the more she struggles to articulate her response to his death, the more we understand what inspired this drama. "People think they know what you're feeling," she tells a friend. "What you must be feeling. And because it's easier not to expose yourself, what you're truly feeling, you don't disabuse them. You go through the motions for them. That's why, I think, I wanted to write the play -- about a man who doesn't feel what he's supposed to."
Miller's insistent examination of that predicament grows increasingly profound and unsettling. The most moving response to the play comes from the lead actor, a man named Rafe, whose wife is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. Assuming the play is only about 9/11, he doesn't realize at first how much it resonates with the dark tones of his own life. Flashbacks take us through Rafe's marriage, the grinding cruelty of his wife's illness and the ineffable mixture of joy and sorrow that characterizes their time together as the end approaches. In one of several catch-your-breath scenes, his wife tells him, "It must be awful to sometimes wish me dead." Dropping a statement like that into a moment of real intimacy while helping us understand how it can be both true and deceptive is the miracle of "The Lake Shore Limited."
This is emotional terrain some people won't feel comfortable in, but it's gorgeously drawn and told with stark honesty. The theatrical performance serves as a surprisingly effective stage for Miller's rueful reflection on what actors we all are -- and how unfairly we convict ourselves for the impurity of our affection. Who doesn't, after all, "wish to imagine what life could be, how it could change, if you were unencumbered"? That doesn't make us murderers or monsters, but it leaves us stuck, like Billy, "trying to calibrate her grief." There's some comfort in realizing the universality of that horrible calculation, and that's just one of the rewards of this novel.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
May 10, 2010
I know what this book is about but I still don't know why I continued to read it. The characters are not very likeable. The story isn't very interesting and when I was done I was glad. In the past I have enjoyed Sue Miller but my opinion is changing. Her characters seem colder and difficult to care about even when you can see that the little kernel that is the base of the story has merit. In this case how different people feel when a "loved one" dies in a big event. Of course all of those people waiting to find out if their loved one is alive or dead must think they should feel regret but surely more than we expect actually feel relief. It just isn't politically correct to admit. That is the kernel of the story.
June 22, 2011
Back in my dating years, I once heard some pop psychologist say something to this effect: in many early meeting situations, two people show up. You. And your representative.
The point, of course, is that each of us wears masks, and it takes some time for those masks to come off and reveal whom we truly are underneath. Sue Miller – in what I believe is her most ambitious and boldly rendered novel to date – explores precisely this phenomenon, but raises the stakes. Her main character – Billy Gertz, is a female playwright whose lover, Gus, is on one of the ill-fated 9/11 planes.
The problem is that she had determined that the relationship had to end…and had not told him yet. She is suddenly elevated to “grieving widow” status yet knows that her actions – and the responses she gets – are all false. As one character says, “Think if you’d been about to ask someone for a divorce, and they upped and died then. The ambivalent reaction to such an event, the complicated one, is shocking to people. It’s repulsive. It’s unpatriotic. It’s small. It’s personal. It’s unworthy. Such a truth needs to be suppressed.”
Billy writes about the experience in a disguised play – the eponymous Lake Shore Limited. One character says to her, “Weren’t you intimidated, writing about Nine-Eleven?” Her answer, “Well of course, it’s not nine-eleven, it’s the Lake Shore Limited.” But is it? There are many themes in this book and one of them is how we transform our experiences – how we use what’s inside us – to create art and indeed, to get by.
She and the other three main characters in the book – Gus’s older and devoted sister Leslie, the main actor Rafe, and Sam, who is Leslie’s friend and Billy’s pursuer, all are in the process of transforming their lives, and reluctantly going through their own performances. Rafe, for example, is living with a wife who is afflicted with ALS, and is forced to “act out” – to her – that nothing has changed between them, while using the conflict and pain he’s feeling to inform his art. His character, in particular, is a tour de force.
In this “environmentally sound school of human interaction”, you use everything up to get by and move forward. It’s all gist for the proverbial mill. Sue Miller’s themes are both mature and complex: where is the line between performance and reality? How do we transfigure our grief and our joy into true art? How do we reshape ourselves? And what is the price of letting the mask slip and becoming vulnerable once again?
This is an introspective novel, an analytical one, that sometimes distances readers from the characters as they struggle to make sense of their lives. But at the end of the day, it’s a novel about beginnings…the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes and starting Act Two of life…or perhaps, fashioning a new play entirely. It elevates Sue Miller to a whole new stratosphere.
The point, of course, is that each of us wears masks, and it takes some time for those masks to come off and reveal whom we truly are underneath. Sue Miller – in what I believe is her most ambitious and boldly rendered novel to date – explores precisely this phenomenon, but raises the stakes. Her main character – Billy Gertz, is a female playwright whose lover, Gus, is on one of the ill-fated 9/11 planes.
The problem is that she had determined that the relationship had to end…and had not told him yet. She is suddenly elevated to “grieving widow” status yet knows that her actions – and the responses she gets – are all false. As one character says, “Think if you’d been about to ask someone for a divorce, and they upped and died then. The ambivalent reaction to such an event, the complicated one, is shocking to people. It’s repulsive. It’s unpatriotic. It’s small. It’s personal. It’s unworthy. Such a truth needs to be suppressed.”
Billy writes about the experience in a disguised play – the eponymous Lake Shore Limited. One character says to her, “Weren’t you intimidated, writing about Nine-Eleven?” Her answer, “Well of course, it’s not nine-eleven, it’s the Lake Shore Limited.” But is it? There are many themes in this book and one of them is how we transform our experiences – how we use what’s inside us – to create art and indeed, to get by.
She and the other three main characters in the book – Gus’s older and devoted sister Leslie, the main actor Rafe, and Sam, who is Leslie’s friend and Billy’s pursuer, all are in the process of transforming their lives, and reluctantly going through their own performances. Rafe, for example, is living with a wife who is afflicted with ALS, and is forced to “act out” – to her – that nothing has changed between them, while using the conflict and pain he’s feeling to inform his art. His character, in particular, is a tour de force.
In this “environmentally sound school of human interaction”, you use everything up to get by and move forward. It’s all gist for the proverbial mill. Sue Miller’s themes are both mature and complex: where is the line between performance and reality? How do we transfigure our grief and our joy into true art? How do we reshape ourselves? And what is the price of letting the mask slip and becoming vulnerable once again?
This is an introspective novel, an analytical one, that sometimes distances readers from the characters as they struggle to make sense of their lives. But at the end of the day, it’s a novel about beginnings…the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes and starting Act Two of life…or perhaps, fashioning a new play entirely. It elevates Sue Miller to a whole new stratosphere.
October 11, 2010
I really love Sue Miller's books, but---like an exotic dish or vacation destination--they're best read, and appreciated, at intervals. Miller's style--building motivation and storyline through the accumulation of details--is fascinating, and her characters very real. But the endless small acts and almost desultory conversations, while realistic, take considerable patience. The onus is on the reader to make connections and see where plot and characters are going; it's not spelled out.
This is a book with many layers, and no hero or heroine. It strips back the outer shell of people who have been in involuntary starring roles in tragedies: Billie the playwright whose lover dies, and Sam the husband whose wife dies. Other characters are living ongoing crises (Rafe) or suffering long-term losses (Leslie). Miller tells us what they believe through their words and actions. And at the heart of the book, a play, which may or may not be the key to understanding what really happened to any number of people on 9/11.
I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.
This is a book with many layers, and no hero or heroine. It strips back the outer shell of people who have been in involuntary starring roles in tragedies: Billie the playwright whose lover dies, and Sam the husband whose wife dies. Other characters are living ongoing crises (Rafe) or suffering long-term losses (Leslie). Miller tells us what they believe through their words and actions. And at the heart of the book, a play, which may or may not be the key to understanding what really happened to any number of people on 9/11.
I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.
October 26, 2011
Sue Miller has previously established her astute perspective of human nature and attendant behaviors in her many books, including The Good Mother and Inventing the Abbotts . She continues with this insightful perception with this novel.
Lake Shore Limited relates to events preceding and post 9-11. The major thrust of the story concerns a play which portrays a terrorist attack on a train, the Lake Shore Limited. It uniquely tells of the author, the characters , friends and many interconnected individuals. Miller has smoothly and deeply intertwined their stories and events which have effected and linked them. Her characterizations are vivid, with a realistic perceptual experience of their behaviors and appearances.
With her complex prose, Miller has precisely conveyed the passage of time and countless emotions in her cleverly devised narrative. Most specifically she has dealt with themes of love, loss and sorrow which are evocative for the reader.
July 27, 2010
I read this novel gratefully after completing Anna Quindlen's latest novel, which I have not even reviewed yet. I use the word "gratefully" because Miller's approach allowed me to keep an arm's length between the characters and me, a healthy detachment, despite the richness of this novel. Centered around a play and the people connected to it, the novel read a bit like a play, with characters being laid out, dialogue, characters walking off to the right and left. Miller also works with life's many tragedies here: the death of a lover in 9/11 when the relationship had fallen apart but no one knew; the effect of a long, terminal illness on a marriage...the life that is borne from loss.
And that life reflects the resiliency of the substantial characters that populate this novel..."The resultant wish to live once again with a sense of possibility"..."having a greater understanding of...the price of love, particularly parental love."..."how pain can change you"...The playwright explained early in the novel that the play was about a man who doesn't feel what he's supposed to, who has an entirely too confused response to it...so he doesn't show anything...almost." That could explain the starting point of many characters in this novel and yet, is skillfully redrawn at the end.
And that life reflects the resiliency of the substantial characters that populate this novel..."The resultant wish to live once again with a sense of possibility"..."having a greater understanding of...the price of love, particularly parental love."..."how pain can change you"...The playwright explained early in the novel that the play was about a man who doesn't feel what he's supposed to, who has an entirely too confused response to it...so he doesn't show anything...almost." That could explain the starting point of many characters in this novel and yet, is skillfully redrawn at the end.
May 5, 2011
This measured and substantial novel is the capstone of Sue Miller's literary career and clearly removes her from the realm of just "women's fiction" and into a more Jamesian sphere of natural realism. Miller provides penetrating and complex characterizations--it doesn't get any better than this--through robust interior monologues, counterpoint between characters and scenes, overlay, keen perceptions and multiple perspectives, and an artful metaphor between stage/theater and real life. Her quartet of characters are examined and explored with a gifted pace and subtle precision that is both calibrated and unmannered simultaneously. There is very little overt drama, and no melodrama; the scrupulous and painstaking finesse to character and story is nearly flawless.
The parallel between a play staged in Boston at the beginning of the novel and the novel itself is the engine and drive of this story. Two protagonists of the quartet (Leslie and Sam) are watching the play, "The Lake Shore Limited"-- three, if you count the playwright, Billy, (Wilhelmina), and the fourth, Rafe, is the main actor playing Gabriel. There is also an unconscious ghost or shadow present in the performance, that of Leslie's much younger brother, Gus, who was Billy's lover until he died in the 9/11 tragedy six years ago.
Leslie, who is watching the play with her husband, Pierce, and her old friend, Sam, is struck by the story, but especially to Rafe's character, Gabriel. In the play, a bombing incident on the Lake Shore Limited train is emotionally jarring and reflective of the American tragedy that took Gus's life. Gabriel's response onstage to his wife's possible death is unsettling to Leslie, who begins to revisit Gus's death and her perception of Billy and Gus's relationship. Likewise, Billy is startled and moved by Rafe's performance in the final scene. And the effect on Rafe of playing Gabriel is stark indeed. Identification with the stage performance changes the lives of all the characters and brings a robust dimension to the novel.
Miller has this brilliantly controlled. The play that readers "read," i.e. see staged, takes up only a handful of pages, and therefore cannot be the entire play. What Miller does is recreate the dramatic turns and action in this section. As the story progresses, more of the play is unfolded through reflection. Although the theatrical "showing" is moderately stilted, (in the contrived style of the stage) this proves later to be a seamless counterpoint to the story at hand. In other words, the questionable authenticity of its truncated beginning will cease to be a problem as time goes on. The text of the play is meticulously linked to its intended audience and is artfully reticulated in the subtext of the novel.
Leslie, Sam, Billy, and Rafe are irrevocably connected in a combination of direct and circuitous ways that intensify with conversation, memories, and with each character's struggle against the past. The author captures the rueful feelings associated with conflicting and impure affections; she conveys the internal contradictions through extended interior monologues that are reminiscent of Henry James. Moreover, Miller's ability to sustain potent, lengthy dialogue between the characters without a shred of artificiality is remarkable, and evokes the reality twist to the theatrical performance.
Through flashbacks and linear chronology, the attachments and junctions, as well as the missed connections between the quartet build to a ripe, organic network of emotions and circumstances. Although there are references and scenes of September 11th, this is not a "9/11" story per se. It has a distinctly American texture, but the thrust is the equation of life with theater. The environment is often like a stage set, and the characters move cautiously around, holding back, playing roles, and letting go at concentrated intervals. Yet, the action and story feel completely natural.
Throughout the novel, the theatrical play is the axis--hence, the title. Miller returns to the play repeatedly, buttressing the novel and characters, and fortifying the themes with an elegant body of construction. Miller's familiar themes of love, loss, grief, and redemption are present, but sans histrionics and spectacles. The subtle, sublime drama is a quietly pulverizing experience for the reader. The intensity of the story fueled with comprehensive characterizations is so richly satisfying that it will take considerable effort to re-emerge from the novel, from the play, from the indelible characters that make up the story.
Ignore the covers; the hardcover picture is misleading and the paperback edition is frivolous, both adding up to an almost generic choice of covers not worthy of such a distinguished work of literature.
The parallel between a play staged in Boston at the beginning of the novel and the novel itself is the engine and drive of this story. Two protagonists of the quartet (Leslie and Sam) are watching the play, "The Lake Shore Limited"-- three, if you count the playwright, Billy, (Wilhelmina), and the fourth, Rafe, is the main actor playing Gabriel. There is also an unconscious ghost or shadow present in the performance, that of Leslie's much younger brother, Gus, who was Billy's lover until he died in the 9/11 tragedy six years ago.
Leslie, who is watching the play with her husband, Pierce, and her old friend, Sam, is struck by the story, but especially to Rafe's character, Gabriel. In the play, a bombing incident on the Lake Shore Limited train is emotionally jarring and reflective of the American tragedy that took Gus's life. Gabriel's response onstage to his wife's possible death is unsettling to Leslie, who begins to revisit Gus's death and her perception of Billy and Gus's relationship. Likewise, Billy is startled and moved by Rafe's performance in the final scene. And the effect on Rafe of playing Gabriel is stark indeed. Identification with the stage performance changes the lives of all the characters and brings a robust dimension to the novel.
Miller has this brilliantly controlled. The play that readers "read," i.e. see staged, takes up only a handful of pages, and therefore cannot be the entire play. What Miller does is recreate the dramatic turns and action in this section. As the story progresses, more of the play is unfolded through reflection. Although the theatrical "showing" is moderately stilted, (in the contrived style of the stage) this proves later to be a seamless counterpoint to the story at hand. In other words, the questionable authenticity of its truncated beginning will cease to be a problem as time goes on. The text of the play is meticulously linked to its intended audience and is artfully reticulated in the subtext of the novel.
Leslie, Sam, Billy, and Rafe are irrevocably connected in a combination of direct and circuitous ways that intensify with conversation, memories, and with each character's struggle against the past. The author captures the rueful feelings associated with conflicting and impure affections; she conveys the internal contradictions through extended interior monologues that are reminiscent of Henry James. Moreover, Miller's ability to sustain potent, lengthy dialogue between the characters without a shred of artificiality is remarkable, and evokes the reality twist to the theatrical performance.
Through flashbacks and linear chronology, the attachments and junctions, as well as the missed connections between the quartet build to a ripe, organic network of emotions and circumstances. Although there are references and scenes of September 11th, this is not a "9/11" story per se. It has a distinctly American texture, but the thrust is the equation of life with theater. The environment is often like a stage set, and the characters move cautiously around, holding back, playing roles, and letting go at concentrated intervals. Yet, the action and story feel completely natural.
Throughout the novel, the theatrical play is the axis--hence, the title. Miller returns to the play repeatedly, buttressing the novel and characters, and fortifying the themes with an elegant body of construction. Miller's familiar themes of love, loss, grief, and redemption are present, but sans histrionics and spectacles. The subtle, sublime drama is a quietly pulverizing experience for the reader. The intensity of the story fueled with comprehensive characterizations is so richly satisfying that it will take considerable effort to re-emerge from the novel, from the play, from the indelible characters that make up the story.
Ignore the covers; the hardcover picture is misleading and the paperback edition is frivolous, both adding up to an almost generic choice of covers not worthy of such a distinguished work of literature.
October 20, 2023
I love books about people and their mundane relationship where not much of anything happens. This reminded me of Ann Packer’s books — complex characters and a slow story about love, loss, and possibility. A lot of it was internal dialogue and the characters reflecting on their lives, which could have been boring. Somehow even the characters I didn’t quite understand or like managed to win me over with one chapter from their perspectives. I liked how she alternated perspectives, a technique that’s often overused, but it highlighted well the parallels between the Billy’s play and the relationships between characters.
November 12, 2011
This book didn't resonate for me as well as some of Sue Miller's other writing, for example While I was gone.
The book is interesting, but it's largely forgetable. It's told in a "snapshot" form as the ending leaves you with no real closure on most of the characters, except that you can just imply they moved on. There is some closure to the Billy/Sam story. However, the character of Billy is somewhat cold, and while I can understand her phlights at times I just never felt connected enough to her as a character to really care much where her story went. I didn't think she was really deserving of Sam. She lacked some of the humility that she desperately needed for me to have any empathy for her.
Sue Miller is a great writer, and her consistency with her characters like her other books is top notch here. However, the book just didn't capture me. Not the characters, not the story. Also, I always have to comment when authors make political comments that don't further the story. It wasn't outrageous in this book, but still a small annoyance to me. Overall, it isn't a book I would recommend to someone. The concept is good, but it just wasn't executed very well. I understand that Miller's portrayal of Billy Gerhtz was intended to make her seem isolated, cold, and objectionable, but then the trouble she faces as an author is how to make the reader connect, and become interested in where the story goes.
I held more empathy for Rafe, Gus, Leslie....I wonder what happened to these characters. I would have wondered about Sam. I am a little disappointed by the end. Miller got a little cliche with her ending- from Sam's roadside rescue and the conversation with Melanie Gruber until the last line.
I didn't hate Billy Gerhtz. She was an interesting character, but she's a playwright in the book for a reason. Fictional character that she is she should have never been in center stage of Miller's book.
The book is interesting, but it's largely forgetable. It's told in a "snapshot" form as the ending leaves you with no real closure on most of the characters, except that you can just imply they moved on. There is some closure to the Billy/Sam story. However, the character of Billy is somewhat cold, and while I can understand her phlights at times I just never felt connected enough to her as a character to really care much where her story went. I didn't think she was really deserving of Sam. She lacked some of the humility that she desperately needed for me to have any empathy for her.
Sue Miller is a great writer, and her consistency with her characters like her other books is top notch here. However, the book just didn't capture me. Not the characters, not the story. Also, I always have to comment when authors make political comments that don't further the story. It wasn't outrageous in this book, but still a small annoyance to me. Overall, it isn't a book I would recommend to someone. The concept is good, but it just wasn't executed very well. I understand that Miller's portrayal of Billy Gerhtz was intended to make her seem isolated, cold, and objectionable, but then the trouble she faces as an author is how to make the reader connect, and become interested in where the story goes.
I held more empathy for Rafe, Gus, Leslie....I wonder what happened to these characters. I would have wondered about Sam. I am a little disappointed by the end. Miller got a little cliche with her ending- from Sam's roadside rescue and the conversation with Melanie Gruber until the last line.
I didn't hate Billy Gerhtz. She was an interesting character, but she's a playwright in the book for a reason. Fictional character that she is she should have never been in center stage of Miller's book.
May 25, 2023
(3.5) A solid set of narratives alternating between the POVs of four characters whose lives converge around a play inspired by the playwright's loss of her boyfriend on one of the hijacked planes on 9/11. Her mixed feelings about him towards the end of his life and about being shackled to his legacy as his 'widow' reverberate in other sections: one about the lead actor, whose wife has ALS; and one about a widower the playwright is being set up with on a date.
All of the characters are dealing with loss and guilt in different ways, and two of them, it seems, may have a new chance at happiness together. Fitting for a book about a play, the scenes feel very visual. The novel has four long chapters devoted to each POV character, followed by four short sections each. In the first three cases these reprises didn't seem to add much, but the fourth was satisfying.
On the whole, it's a little underpowered, but subtlety is to be expected from a Sue Miller novel. She, Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Berg write easy reads with substance, just the kind of book I want to take on an airplane, as indeed I did with this one. I read the first 2/3 on a travel day (although with the 9/11 theme this maybe wasn't the best choice).
All of the characters are dealing with loss and guilt in different ways, and two of them, it seems, may have a new chance at happiness together. Fitting for a book about a play, the scenes feel very visual. The novel has four long chapters devoted to each POV character, followed by four short sections each. In the first three cases these reprises didn't seem to add much, but the fourth was satisfying.
On the whole, it's a little underpowered, but subtlety is to be expected from a Sue Miller novel. She, Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Berg write easy reads with substance, just the kind of book I want to take on an airplane, as indeed I did with this one. I read the first 2/3 on a travel day (although with the 9/11 theme this maybe wasn't the best choice).
September 13, 2022
The plot of this book has been described in nearly every review, so I won’t recap it again. I will begin by saying that I enjoyed this book in spite of its flaws. It held my interest, and Miller is very good at writing small everyday details that make up human lives and relationships.
However, I’m beginning to realize that I’m getting tired of the multiple-point-of-view novel. It seems nearly every new book is written this way now; it’s more than a trend, it’s just about de rigueur. Before reading this, I read “Heat Wave” by Penelope Lively and “A Pale View of Hills” by Kazuo Ishiguro; both of these gave us just one character’s viewpoint but done in completely different manners and effectively, showing that you don’t need many viewpoints to prompt you to question truth. This novel, I thought, could have been limited to the main character, Billy, who I thought was the most complex and interesting of the four viewpoint characters, and her relationships with perhaps one or two others. I liked her scenes with Leslie, the heartbroken sister of Billy’s lover Gus, killed on 9/11. The two seem to be friendly at first, but a wedge is driven between them after the tragedy: Leslie believed that Gus and Billy would be getting married; Billy had made up her mind to break up with Gus precisely on September 11, 2001, before his plane crashed into the Towers. Leslie assumes that Billy is shattered, while Billy feels strangely ambivalent about it, feeling compelled to hide her feelings from Leslie and to act like a grieving widow at Gus’s memorial service.
This may make Billy seem cold and heartless, but I don’t believe she is at all. She and Gus were very different; his cheerful, optimistic, somewhat naive nature was always a poor fit for Billy’s introspective, independent, somewhat iconoclastic personality. Before the crash, we see Billy longing for the life she had when she was on her own, living by herself, going her own way and living life as she saw fit. The ironic fact of Gus’s death just preceding their breakup smacks her with guilt and almost destroys her relationship with Leslie and her budding one with Leslie’s friend Sam. The latter inserts a “will-she-or-won’t-she” element into the story. She feels attracted to Sam but keeps rejecting his advances, sure that she doesn’t want to get involved with anyone again. In the meantime, she settles back into her solitary life with her beloved dog, ironically her last gift from Gus. Many reviewers have had negative reactions to Billy, but I liked her. I thought she was realistic, and I wonder whether other readers are put off by her ambivalence about Gus’s death, a feeling that most of us wouldn’t want to admit to. Ambivalent feelings is the theme of the play Billy writes as well as of the novel. The play’s protagonist isn’t sure whether he feels grief or relief when he learns that the train his wife was on was bombed. Billy has the same feelings about Gus’s death. It may not be comfortable, but it’s human.
To return to the multiple viewpoints: often this works well, but in this case it led to a lot of repetition, as each character’s POV starts by recounting a scene that took place previously. I thought this was unnecessary; Miller could have picked up the next character’s story without going back to show us his or her reaction to what we just saw happen in the previous section.
As far as the characters themselves, I had the most negative reaction to Rafe, the lead actor in Billy’s play, who seemed too much the stereotypical self-absorbed actor. Yes, his wife had ALS, but does that excuse his sleeping with Billy in a pretty raunchily described one-night stand? I liked Leslie and sympathized with her still-raw grief over the death of her beloved brother. Sam seemed like a decent guy, but frankly I thought his sections were unnecessary and included only to show that he also was scarred by his past and by difficulties with loved ones. There is one sweet scene, though, in which Billy has agreed to take a walk in the park with Sam and her dog. She suffers a bad fall; Sam insists on seeing her home and patching up her wounds. While she’s resting, he takes the dog out for her, but can’t find food to feed him and leaves her a nice note telling her this. At this point I thought that yes, she’s going to fall for this guy, who wouldn’t? But Billy had other plans, and I liked this part of her character. In fact, Billy was my main reason for finishing the book. I just wish we had seen more of her and of her relationship with Gus. I think this would have made the book more satisfying. Three and a half stars.
However, I’m beginning to realize that I’m getting tired of the multiple-point-of-view novel. It seems nearly every new book is written this way now; it’s more than a trend, it’s just about de rigueur. Before reading this, I read “Heat Wave” by Penelope Lively and “A Pale View of Hills” by Kazuo Ishiguro; both of these gave us just one character’s viewpoint but done in completely different manners and effectively, showing that you don’t need many viewpoints to prompt you to question truth. This novel, I thought, could have been limited to the main character, Billy, who I thought was the most complex and interesting of the four viewpoint characters, and her relationships with perhaps one or two others. I liked her scenes with Leslie, the heartbroken sister of Billy’s lover Gus, killed on 9/11. The two seem to be friendly at first, but a wedge is driven between them after the tragedy: Leslie believed that Gus and Billy would be getting married; Billy had made up her mind to break up with Gus precisely on September 11, 2001, before his plane crashed into the Towers. Leslie assumes that Billy is shattered, while Billy feels strangely ambivalent about it, feeling compelled to hide her feelings from Leslie and to act like a grieving widow at Gus’s memorial service.
This may make Billy seem cold and heartless, but I don’t believe she is at all. She and Gus were very different; his cheerful, optimistic, somewhat naive nature was always a poor fit for Billy’s introspective, independent, somewhat iconoclastic personality. Before the crash, we see Billy longing for the life she had when she was on her own, living by herself, going her own way and living life as she saw fit. The ironic fact of Gus’s death just preceding their breakup smacks her with guilt and almost destroys her relationship with Leslie and her budding one with Leslie’s friend Sam. The latter inserts a “will-she-or-won’t-she” element into the story. She feels attracted to Sam but keeps rejecting his advances, sure that she doesn’t want to get involved with anyone again. In the meantime, she settles back into her solitary life with her beloved dog, ironically her last gift from Gus. Many reviewers have had negative reactions to Billy, but I liked her. I thought she was realistic, and I wonder whether other readers are put off by her ambivalence about Gus’s death, a feeling that most of us wouldn’t want to admit to. Ambivalent feelings is the theme of the play Billy writes as well as of the novel. The play’s protagonist isn’t sure whether he feels grief or relief when he learns that the train his wife was on was bombed. Billy has the same feelings about Gus’s death. It may not be comfortable, but it’s human.
To return to the multiple viewpoints: often this works well, but in this case it led to a lot of repetition, as each character’s POV starts by recounting a scene that took place previously. I thought this was unnecessary; Miller could have picked up the next character’s story without going back to show us his or her reaction to what we just saw happen in the previous section.
As far as the characters themselves, I had the most negative reaction to Rafe, the lead actor in Billy’s play, who seemed too much the stereotypical self-absorbed actor. Yes, his wife had ALS, but does that excuse his sleeping with Billy in a pretty raunchily described one-night stand? I liked Leslie and sympathized with her still-raw grief over the death of her beloved brother. Sam seemed like a decent guy, but frankly I thought his sections were unnecessary and included only to show that he also was scarred by his past and by difficulties with loved ones. There is one sweet scene, though, in which Billy has agreed to take a walk in the park with Sam and her dog. She suffers a bad fall; Sam insists on seeing her home and patching up her wounds. While she’s resting, he takes the dog out for her, but can’t find food to feed him and leaves her a nice note telling her this. At this point I thought that yes, she’s going to fall for this guy, who wouldn’t? But Billy had other plans, and I liked this part of her character. In fact, Billy was my main reason for finishing the book. I just wish we had seen more of her and of her relationship with Gus. I think this would have made the book more satisfying. Three and a half stars.
October 8, 2012
I've read five other of her books and enjoyed them all to one degree or another - this one was rather boring. I think she was trying to be "literary" and maybe she succeeded but I didn't care for it. The way it was written was complicated - I'm not sure I'm liking these books that keep repeating the same story told by different characters and each time we hear the story again, a little more information is given. For me that just makes the novel confusing, especially when I listen to part of it on a CD; all of a sudden I think the CD skipped or something because I'm hearing information I already heard. Luckily when I do listen to an audio version, I usually also have a copy of the book to go back to so I can figure out what I just heard. I essentially read this entire book after I had listened to it.
The characters were not particularly likeable but they were humans and humans aren't perfect so in that respect, they were believable; many of her characters are not likeable but the other novels were much more interesting than this one. I don't get the porn section - what did that do for the story? I must have missed something.
Had to give it 2 stars rather than one if, for no other reason, the last 2 1/2 pages in the hardcover version - I did feel like I was there standing on the street and could see the whole scene as it unfolded. The last line was perfect.
By the way, I loved the dog!
Think this is the last Sue Miller novel I will read - six is enough.
REVISED 10-7-12
The characters were not particularly likeable but they were humans and humans aren't perfect so in that respect, they were believable; many of her characters are not likeable but the other novels were much more interesting than this one. I don't get the porn section - what did that do for the story? I must have missed something.
Had to give it 2 stars rather than one if, for no other reason, the last 2 1/2 pages in the hardcover version - I did feel like I was there standing on the street and could see the whole scene as it unfolded. The last line was perfect.
By the way, I loved the dog!
Think this is the last Sue Miller novel I will read - six is enough.
REVISED 10-7-12
April 19, 2016
Initially I wasn't sure I'd finish this book, as I found the "play within a book" somewhat tedious. However, as the book progressed, I got caught up in the characters stories and realized something.
Sue Miller's writing, the stories she tells and the characters in them get to places in me that not every book does; it touch me, move me deepy. I FEEL something when I read her books. Often it is the brutal honesty of a character or a scene and their ability to offend or shock, maybe even repulse me.
I can only think of two other books I've had such visceral reactions to and one of them was another Sue Miller book, The Senator's Wife.
As I continued to read this book, it came to me that it's not so much that I don't like the book (as I have thought in the past about other books), but it's that the writing, story, and/ particular character touched something, hit a nerve, deep in me. I am reacting/responding very strongly, poitively or negatively. Therefore, I can't rate the book based on my emotional reaction alone; I didn't like the characters or was repulsed by something, so I give the book 2 stars. Not all characters are "likeable" and aren't meant to be; however hey play a huge part in the overall story.
To be honest, I think I learned this by watching Breaking Bad.
So now, for me, what might previously have been rated a 1 or 2-star book is realized to be a book I really liked because the author wrote the book in such a way as to calls for the reader to FEEL something. Just as "the play within the book" called for the audience to FEEL something. It was ment to push buttons; it accomplished that goal well.
I highly recommend this book!! (I will have to go back and read my review of The Senator's Wife. I might be editing it and rating it differently now.)
Sue Miller's writing, the stories she tells and the characters in them get to places in me that not every book does; it touch me, move me deepy. I FEEL something when I read her books. Often it is the brutal honesty of a character or a scene and their ability to offend or shock, maybe even repulse me.
I can only think of two other books I've had such visceral reactions to and one of them was another Sue Miller book, The Senator's Wife.
As I continued to read this book, it came to me that it's not so much that I don't like the book (as I have thought in the past about other books), but it's that the writing, story, and/ particular character touched something, hit a nerve, deep in me. I am reacting/responding very strongly, poitively or negatively. Therefore, I can't rate the book based on my emotional reaction alone; I didn't like the characters or was repulsed by something, so I give the book 2 stars. Not all characters are "likeable" and aren't meant to be; however hey play a huge part in the overall story.
To be honest, I think I learned this by watching Breaking Bad.
So now, for me, what might previously have been rated a 1 or 2-star book is realized to be a book I really liked because the author wrote the book in such a way as to calls for the reader to FEEL something. Just as "the play within the book" called for the audience to FEEL something. It was ment to push buttons; it accomplished that goal well.
I highly recommend this book!! (I will have to go back and read my review of The Senator's Wife. I might be editing it and rating it differently now.)
April 13, 2010
I loved this book, every word of it. There are four main characters. Their stories are fascinating in and of themselves but also in the context of their relationships with each other. The play that parallels their lives, that connects them and separates them, is a character in itself. I learned as much about myself through the interplay of the narrative and the play as the characters learn as they see themselves reflected in art and the process of art.
Often when a book's structure shifts between different character's points of views, I find one character–one story–the most compelling and I have to stifle the urge to gloss over the others. Not so here. The pacing was superb. The chapters took me deep into the individuals and their lives but had just enough connection to the others–and to the play–to keep me immersed in the chapter but excited to move into the next one. Miller is superb at mixing descriptive passages, plot movement, and character insight. So often in contemporary fiction, I feel like I like I have to give up either depth of character or page-turning plot. The plot is pretty basic here: there's a play and four people who are connected in the present and in recent past. Someone has died. Someone else (a minor character) is dying. Others are stuck. The play's run ends. The book ends. It doesn't sound like a thriller but I can't think of another book that kept me as on edge, completely immersed in what would happen.
The writing is brilliant. I learned so much about the craft of writing as well as the reasons we write, or paint, or compose–about what draws us into non-ordinary reality in the hope we can better understand the ordinary world and all the layers of love and loss, endings and beginnings.
Often when a book's structure shifts between different character's points of views, I find one character–one story–the most compelling and I have to stifle the urge to gloss over the others. Not so here. The pacing was superb. The chapters took me deep into the individuals and their lives but had just enough connection to the others–and to the play–to keep me immersed in the chapter but excited to move into the next one. Miller is superb at mixing descriptive passages, plot movement, and character insight. So often in contemporary fiction, I feel like I like I have to give up either depth of character or page-turning plot. The plot is pretty basic here: there's a play and four people who are connected in the present and in recent past. Someone has died. Someone else (a minor character) is dying. Others are stuck. The play's run ends. The book ends. It doesn't sound like a thriller but I can't think of another book that kept me as on edge, completely immersed in what would happen.
The writing is brilliant. I learned so much about the craft of writing as well as the reasons we write, or paint, or compose–about what draws us into non-ordinary reality in the hope we can better understand the ordinary world and all the layers of love and loss, endings and beginnings.
September 9, 2010
I absolutely loved this book. You know how writers say that they write the books they want to read. If I could write fiction, this is the book I would have written because it is exactly the kind of book I want to read. I love the multiple perspectives. I love that people are certain about each other, and absolutely wrong, I love the way the play that one character, Billy, has written is woven into the novel in so many different ways. It is utterly intimate and yet so complicated.
When the tragedy occurred on 9/11, I was writing about the wonder of ordinary life with my fifth grade students. That night, I wondered about the people who had lost loved ones and had had complicated feelings about these people they loved. Most of us do feel a million different ways about our children, friends, spouses.
This book is about that, about all the ways in which we misread, misunderstand, and don't quite connect with the people in our lives. It is what I wished "My Wife's Affair" was like. It was utterly sad and completely uplifting. I loved how true it felt. I really like Sue Miller's writing, but this is the book I like best, the book I think I needed at this particular time.
When the tragedy occurred on 9/11, I was writing about the wonder of ordinary life with my fifth grade students. That night, I wondered about the people who had lost loved ones and had had complicated feelings about these people they loved. Most of us do feel a million different ways about our children, friends, spouses.
This book is about that, about all the ways in which we misread, misunderstand, and don't quite connect with the people in our lives. It is what I wished "My Wife's Affair" was like. It was utterly sad and completely uplifting. I loved how true it felt. I really like Sue Miller's writing, but this is the book I like best, the book I think I needed at this particular time.
May 25, 2014
This novel explores 9/11 through the construct of a play based on a terrorist attack written by an author who lost a boyfriend during 9/11. It is an odd construct, bringing the reader both closer and further from 9/11 than may be appropriate. It works to some degree in that it allows for an exploration of some of the reactions to 9/11 that people had that might have otherwise been difficult to acknowledge. Unfortunately, the writing, like the narrative structure also tends to distance the reader from the characters. As much as I knew about each character, I really couldn't care about them. The limited third person omniscient approach wasn't successful for me.
April 29, 2013
This is the first Sue Miller novel I've read. It took me awhile to get used to her style, but in the end it was worth it. This book was a reaction to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Billy, the main character, lost her lover, Gus, who was killed when the plane he was on was flown into one of the twin towers. But this wasn't a simple story about losing someone you love in a senseless act of terror. There were problems with Billy and Gus' relationship and those problems left Billy feeling confused and guilty. Since she was a playwright, she wrote a play about those feelings. The name of that play was The Lake Shore Limited, hence the name of the novel.
There were a couple of things that I found very unusual about Miller's style. First of all she included a great amount of detail that at first seemed superfluous, yet that detail seemed to push me into the characters' minds by emphasizing everything they might notice in their surroundings. Secondly, Miller generally told her readers what her characters were thinking instead of letting us see reactions that would show us their thoughts. Here's an excerpt from the novel that shows both those techniques:
“Yeah,” Pierce answered. They were all standing now. They moved into the aisle among the others inching back to the lobby. Pierce kept his hand on her elbow—a kind of sympathetic connection, she felt. She was grateful to him, but she was far away. She felt confused. Around her, she could hear others talking, speculating, commenting on the actors, on the arguments.
Some weren't. Some had shed the play quickly, were on to their own lives. She heard a voice say, “I wish I'd known it was going to rain today. I didn't bring an umbrella to work.”
All of Miller's characters seemed to analyze their own emotions and situations as if their lives were one gigantic therapy session. At the reception following a memorial service for Gus, Billy met a number of Gus' friends and colleagues who had heard about her through Gus. She kept thinking how she should be honest and explain everything, including why she wasn't part of the service. But she didn't because she felt explaining herself would be self-aggrandizing. This was his memorial service, not hers. The strange way Billy's mind worked, combined with her lack of emotion was intriguing.
I loved the way the play within a book worked. The characters in the play were aspects of Billy and all part of her need to be honest about her feelings. Also, I've been involved in school theater and community theater for years, so I can identify with the backstage activity
Oddly, I finished reading this novel the week of the Boston Marathon bombings.
I plan to read more of Sue Miller's work.
Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul
There were a couple of things that I found very unusual about Miller's style. First of all she included a great amount of detail that at first seemed superfluous, yet that detail seemed to push me into the characters' minds by emphasizing everything they might notice in their surroundings. Secondly, Miller generally told her readers what her characters were thinking instead of letting us see reactions that would show us their thoughts. Here's an excerpt from the novel that shows both those techniques:
“Yeah,” Pierce answered. They were all standing now. They moved into the aisle among the others inching back to the lobby. Pierce kept his hand on her elbow—a kind of sympathetic connection, she felt. She was grateful to him, but she was far away. She felt confused. Around her, she could hear others talking, speculating, commenting on the actors, on the arguments.
Some weren't. Some had shed the play quickly, were on to their own lives. She heard a voice say, “I wish I'd known it was going to rain today. I didn't bring an umbrella to work.”
All of Miller's characters seemed to analyze their own emotions and situations as if their lives were one gigantic therapy session. At the reception following a memorial service for Gus, Billy met a number of Gus' friends and colleagues who had heard about her through Gus. She kept thinking how she should be honest and explain everything, including why she wasn't part of the service. But she didn't because she felt explaining herself would be self-aggrandizing. This was his memorial service, not hers. The strange way Billy's mind worked, combined with her lack of emotion was intriguing.
I loved the way the play within a book worked. The characters in the play were aspects of Billy and all part of her need to be honest about her feelings. Also, I've been involved in school theater and community theater for years, so I can identify with the backstage activity
Oddly, I finished reading this novel the week of the Boston Marathon bombings.
I plan to read more of Sue Miller's work.
Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul
May 7, 2010
When I saw this book at the library, I almost didn't pick it up. I was thinking some previous book by this author had left a bad taste in my mouth, but I couldn't remember which. I decided to get it anyway, and I am delighted that I did! It was one of the best books I've read in a long time. It is honest, thought provoking, human, difficult, unhappy and happy and realistic and good.
The entire book revolves around the play, The Lake Shore Limited, which is about a terrorist attack on a train in Chicago. The book examines the play and its effects from the point of view several sets of people, all of whose lives become intertwined. Leslie's brother Gus, the playwright's boyfriend, was killed in 911. Leslie introduces Sam to Billy, the playwright. Sam's wife died of cancer. Rafe, the lead actor in the play, has a wife dying of Lou Gherig's disease. Doesn't sound like the making of a very happy book, and indeed, it is not a happy book--and yet it is. It looks hard at tough choices and the aftermath of those choices. I liked it very much. The characters are well-defined with good and bad points, and all thoughtful people. They are not the horrible callous people so many current novels seem to feature.
I went back and looked at the list of books by Sue Miller and could not discover why I thought I didn't like her--I must have mixed her up with someone else. Now I am anxious to read more of her books.
My daughter just reminded me that I didn't like one with a woman remembering her days in a hippie house that ended with an awful murder and contemplating adultery in her current life, While I Was Gone. UGH! I knew I had a bad taste in my mouth! NOW I'm not sure if I want to read more or not. One excellent, one horrible. OH dear, who will I know whether to read more?
The entire book revolves around the play, The Lake Shore Limited, which is about a terrorist attack on a train in Chicago. The book examines the play and its effects from the point of view several sets of people, all of whose lives become intertwined. Leslie's brother Gus, the playwright's boyfriend, was killed in 911. Leslie introduces Sam to Billy, the playwright. Sam's wife died of cancer. Rafe, the lead actor in the play, has a wife dying of Lou Gherig's disease. Doesn't sound like the making of a very happy book, and indeed, it is not a happy book--and yet it is. It looks hard at tough choices and the aftermath of those choices. I liked it very much. The characters are well-defined with good and bad points, and all thoughtful people. They are not the horrible callous people so many current novels seem to feature.
I went back and looked at the list of books by Sue Miller and could not discover why I thought I didn't like her--I must have mixed her up with someone else. Now I am anxious to read more of her books.
My daughter just reminded me that I didn't like one with a woman remembering her days in a hippie house that ended with an awful murder and contemplating adultery in her current life, While I Was Gone. UGH! I knew I had a bad taste in my mouth! NOW I'm not sure if I want to read more or not. One excellent, one horrible. OH dear, who will I know whether to read more?
July 29, 2011
Beautiful, quiet, evocative novel told from multiple viewpoints. The viewpoints don’t shift rapidly like most books employing this method, thus The Lake Shore Limited reads like several short stories, but more connected. One immediately interesting device was that instead of this being a novel about 9/11 it’s a novel about a play that’s about 9/11. I found that a very clever twist. Also, I loved the delving into of Billy’s creative process for writing her play.
This is not a loud book. The plot mostly revolves around the opening night for the eponymous Lake Shore Limited but I found the character study vivid, engaging, and a little bit heartbreaking. There are some show-stopping observations and lines, such as: “And she supposed Sam had been a momentary dream of hers, too, once she allowed herself from her place in a marriage that was never going to fall apart.”
Brilliant. I must’ve read that sentence a dozen times. Another favorite was: “Here, where she lived—safe and quiet and dark.”
Again, if you’re looking for high stakes action and a riveting plot, this is not the optimal book choice. But I am surprised how many people here say the characters are unlikeable. They are certainly not perfect, but I cannot figure unlikeable! In any case, I absolutely loved the quiet and the truth of this book.
This is not a loud book. The plot mostly revolves around the opening night for the eponymous Lake Shore Limited but I found the character study vivid, engaging, and a little bit heartbreaking. There are some show-stopping observations and lines, such as: “And she supposed Sam had been a momentary dream of hers, too, once she allowed herself from her place in a marriage that was never going to fall apart.”
Brilliant. I must’ve read that sentence a dozen times. Another favorite was: “Here, where she lived—safe and quiet and dark.”
Again, if you’re looking for high stakes action and a riveting plot, this is not the optimal book choice. But I am surprised how many people here say the characters are unlikeable. They are certainly not perfect, but I cannot figure unlikeable! In any case, I absolutely loved the quiet and the truth of this book.
October 20, 2013
Sue Miller is a fascinating writer. Her novel The World Below is one of my all time favourite books and While I Was Gone has also stayed with me for a completely different reason - the unexpected murder at the heart of the novel. With The Lake Shore Limited - for me as a reader anyway - she has changed tack again.
This book is quieter and very subtle. I love the locations of Boston and Vermont. I really felt that I got a sense of the playwright Billy's life living in the exclusive suburb of Union Park - her big dog, the fact that people visiting her often get a parking ticket, even how the cold and snow affects her life.
Billy really is at the centre of this novel - her life and the play she writes that is inspired by her experience of 9/11.
The novel's construction is quite different. The book is told in four points of view: Leslie an older woman whose brother Gus died in 9/11, Gus's girlfriend Billy, a male friend of Leslie's Sam (who I think was a very interesting male character) and Rafe the actor who appears in the play. The four points of view is not original of course but the fact that we only get two rounds with each character is, I think. The second round with each of the characters is shorter but as the book concludes this is where the author's skill and the experience come into play. It is where you really come to understand what a fine writer Miller is.
This book is quieter and very subtle. I love the locations of Boston and Vermont. I really felt that I got a sense of the playwright Billy's life living in the exclusive suburb of Union Park - her big dog, the fact that people visiting her often get a parking ticket, even how the cold and snow affects her life.
Billy really is at the centre of this novel - her life and the play she writes that is inspired by her experience of 9/11.
The novel's construction is quite different. The book is told in four points of view: Leslie an older woman whose brother Gus died in 9/11, Gus's girlfriend Billy, a male friend of Leslie's Sam (who I think was a very interesting male character) and Rafe the actor who appears in the play. The four points of view is not original of course but the fact that we only get two rounds with each character is, I think. The second round with each of the characters is shorter but as the book concludes this is where the author's skill and the experience come into play. It is where you really come to understand what a fine writer Miller is.
October 7, 2011
This is actually more of a 3.5, almost 4. I think what I liked most about The Lake Shore Limited is the idea that someone who has tried to cut love out of her life (partly because of guilt from a failed relationship with a very complicated finish) can still find love, despite herself. Every once in awhile, I really need a sweet, happy ending.
I'm always impressed at how complete Miller's portraits are. You come away with a full sense of the good and bad, strength and weakness in all of the main characters. Even very likable characters, like Leslie, are flawed. I was especially intrigued by the complex relationships between Sam and his sons. I thought Miller was very realistic in her look at how single fatherhood impacted Sam's boys. Parenting is never cut and dried; Sam succeeded sometimes, failed other times, and in some cases, those relationships were never all right again.
I'm always impressed at how complete Miller's portraits are. You come away with a full sense of the good and bad, strength and weakness in all of the main characters. Even very likable characters, like Leslie, are flawed. I was especially intrigued by the complex relationships between Sam and his sons. I thought Miller was very realistic in her look at how single fatherhood impacted Sam's boys. Parenting is never cut and dried; Sam succeeded sometimes, failed other times, and in some cases, those relationships were never all right again.
January 29, 2011
This is a difficult one to sum up. I've always liked Sue Miller's books but this one's even more character based and introspective than most. I almost gave up in the first quarter - Billy's a playwright who produces a work based on her personal experiences, the other key characters go to watch it (or act in it), and the author describes the whole play. I didn't think that worked particularly well. But the characterisation thereafter is excellent, and you get tremendously involved in the lives, loves and fears of Leslie, Rafe, Billy and Sam. Overall I enjoyed it, but it was a really slow and contemplative read and might not be everyone's cup of tea.
July 25, 2014
I read this because Sue Miller is one of my fav authors. However, this is not one of her better books. She jumped on the 9.11 bandwagon and wrote a story with characters lacking in interesting traits, personalities, and lives.
There was not enough character development to make me care.
There was not enough character development to make me care.
May 20, 2025
The field around her house was unreasonably beautiful. The day was still, no wind, and the snow had collected evenly on every branch of the twisted old apple trees, of the swooping birches bent low under it....He sat for a while after he cut the engine, thinking about missing this, thinking about losing it, about losing Lauren, losing Grace, losing Pete and Nat. It seemed more than he could bear, this beauty, and all this loss.
I see reviews were mixed on this, which makes me a little sad because I'm turning into quite the Sue Miller fangirl and this book is a perfect snapshot of late era Sue Miller: multiple characters (New Englanders, specifically) tell an interwoven story about grief, relationships, and the sounds of settling.
And while this book is nominally her 9/11 novel (one character that only exists in the memories of others died on one of the planes), she no longer relies on a dramatic event--accusations of child abuse, blackmail, was it or was it not vehicular homicide--as a fulcrum for the plot.
Gus's presence looms over the whole story, although only two of the characters we spend time with (his older sister Leslie and his girlfriend, Billy) knew him. Billy has written a play about a terrorist train bombing several years after the fact that ends up revealing perhaps more than she intended to the viewer about that relationship. The other two characters are Rafe, an actor in the play with his own sad story, and Sam, an old friend of Leslie's she is trying to set up with Billy.
Everyone in this story is sad, and with good reason. But their sadness is strangely comforting, so quietly and tenderly rendered.
Billy actually got teary as they were given their diplomas and loped across the stage so triumphantly, so hopeful and unaware of what was coming at them.
Good things are coming for us. But also grief, ambivalence, the shame we feel about ambivalence, the trade-off of passion and ambition for comfort.
"Sometimes when I meet ambitious people now, people who are really absorbed in their work--like you--I feel a kind of envy." This was true of Jack, but he suddenly thought of Billy, too--Billy saying, "God, I love the theater." What he'd thought at that moment, what he'd imagined he might say to Billy at some point, was that she was like a man in that regard, in her passion for her work, and he was like a woman in relation to his, each attitude probably the result of a long, complicated personal history around the issue. He knew his was, anyway.
Speaking of Billy, I'll just say she's prickly and pretentious and often cold and I struggled to like her much of the time (as will many readers), although I certainly understood her better by the end. I don't necessarily mind unlikable characters though. It's all about why they are there and what the author does with them.
This book was full of melancholy but I also couldn't put it down or stop thinking about it. And that is what makes Sue Miller Sue Miller, y'all.
Ok, for what I liked less, the story struggles to come to an ending. I don't doubt there is architectural purpose in how everything was designed, but for me it felt like the ball rolled down the hill maybe 30 pages too long.
I see reviews were mixed on this, which makes me a little sad because I'm turning into quite the Sue Miller fangirl and this book is a perfect snapshot of late era Sue Miller: multiple characters (New Englanders, specifically) tell an interwoven story about grief, relationships, and the sounds of settling.
And while this book is nominally her 9/11 novel (one character that only exists in the memories of others died on one of the planes), she no longer relies on a dramatic event--accusations of child abuse, blackmail, was it or was it not vehicular homicide--as a fulcrum for the plot.
Gus's presence looms over the whole story, although only two of the characters we spend time with (his older sister Leslie and his girlfriend, Billy) knew him. Billy has written a play about a terrorist train bombing several years after the fact that ends up revealing perhaps more than she intended to the viewer about that relationship. The other two characters are Rafe, an actor in the play with his own sad story, and Sam, an old friend of Leslie's she is trying to set up with Billy.
Everyone in this story is sad, and with good reason. But their sadness is strangely comforting, so quietly and tenderly rendered.
Billy actually got teary as they were given their diplomas and loped across the stage so triumphantly, so hopeful and unaware of what was coming at them.
Good things are coming for us. But also grief, ambivalence, the shame we feel about ambivalence, the trade-off of passion and ambition for comfort.
"Sometimes when I meet ambitious people now, people who are really absorbed in their work--like you--I feel a kind of envy." This was true of Jack, but he suddenly thought of Billy, too--Billy saying, "God, I love the theater." What he'd thought at that moment, what he'd imagined he might say to Billy at some point, was that she was like a man in that regard, in her passion for her work, and he was like a woman in relation to his, each attitude probably the result of a long, complicated personal history around the issue. He knew his was, anyway.
Speaking of Billy, I'll just say she's prickly and pretentious and often cold and I struggled to like her much of the time (as will many readers), although I certainly understood her better by the end. I don't necessarily mind unlikable characters though. It's all about why they are there and what the author does with them.
This book was full of melancholy but I also couldn't put it down or stop thinking about it. And that is what makes Sue Miller Sue Miller, y'all.
Ok, for what I liked less, the story struggles to come to an ending. I don't doubt there is architectural purpose in how everything was designed, but for me it felt like the ball rolled down the hill maybe 30 pages too long.
April 1, 2020
I am a Sue Miller fan. I have been since I read The Good Mother in the mid 1980s. She just draws me in with her incisive observations about people, how they act, and what might be motivating them.
This book is beautifully written. It sensitively examines the lives of four people impacted adversely by the 9/11 attack.
Leslie travels to Boston with her husband to see a new play called The Lake Shore Limited. The playwright, Billy, used to be the lover of Leslie's brother. They have remained friends since he died in the 9/11 attack.
The play is about a man who has just heard that his wife was killed in a Chicago bombing. His grief stricken son accuses him of being glad that he's free now to remarry. The man's lover berates him and calls him callous. He’s seen by all as being coldly detached in the face of his wife’s violent death.
Leslie is disturbed by the powerful play’s content, seeing it as somehow related to Billy and her brother’s death. The story jumps back and forward in time but always returns to that play, which Leslie becomes obsessed with. Billy insists that it contains no personal parallels. The play’s lead actor Rafe’s wife is dying from a tragic illness. There are flashbacks to Rafe’s marriage, and the bittersweet nature of his wife’s end being nigh.
This is a very honest, raw, and confronting read. I have read it three times. I would recommend it.
This book is beautifully written. It sensitively examines the lives of four people impacted adversely by the 9/11 attack.
Leslie travels to Boston with her husband to see a new play called The Lake Shore Limited. The playwright, Billy, used to be the lover of Leslie's brother. They have remained friends since he died in the 9/11 attack.
The play is about a man who has just heard that his wife was killed in a Chicago bombing. His grief stricken son accuses him of being glad that he's free now to remarry. The man's lover berates him and calls him callous. He’s seen by all as being coldly detached in the face of his wife’s violent death.
Leslie is disturbed by the powerful play’s content, seeing it as somehow related to Billy and her brother’s death. The story jumps back and forward in time but always returns to that play, which Leslie becomes obsessed with. Billy insists that it contains no personal parallels. The play’s lead actor Rafe’s wife is dying from a tragic illness. There are flashbacks to Rafe’s marriage, and the bittersweet nature of his wife’s end being nigh.
This is a very honest, raw, and confronting read. I have read it three times. I would recommend it.
Read
July 3, 2017The Lake Shore Limited is a new novel from Sure Miller, author of The Senator's Wife. Four characters are delineated so well the reader thinks she knows them herself. First among them is Wilhelmina, known by family and friends as Billie. She is a playwright and the story centers on her play being presented at off Broadway location. The play revolves around an imagined terrorist bombing of a train as it pulls into Union Station in Chicago. A man is waiting to hear if his estranged wife was on the train. Billie had waited in the same way on 9/11 to hear whether her lover, Gus. was on one of the planes used in the attack. The setting moves from the snow-filled woods of Vermont to the rainy brick sidewalks of Boston. The lives of other characters intersects with Billie. Leslie, Gus's sister , still grieves. Rafe who is an actor and Sam, a man in love with Billie, are also characters. The play was created by the emotions of the four characters. The play touches and changes the characters. The novel is complex and the characters ones that will linger in the readers' minds.
March 11, 2022
I have read and greatly enjoyed Sue Miller's books previously, unfortunately The Lake Shore Limited was a mixed bag for me. The novel is an exquisite demonstration of Miller's writing skills when it comes to character studies. However, the focus is often on Billy, a playwright who lost her partner in 9/11 and unravels her feelings in her latest play. What I struggled with was other characters' preoccupation with Billy who is unlikable. I'm not clear as to whether Miller intended Billy to be unsympathetic or if that is my personal feeling. I may have to sit with my thoughts on that.
There were many sections of the book that were 4 stars for me and sections that annoyed me enough to rate the book 2 stars. (The clinical sex scenes and the girlie show at the carnival, why oh why is that even in the book??) I'll settle in the middle with a 3 star rating.
Sue Miller narrates her own book and has a pleasant reading voice.
There were many sections of the book that were 4 stars for me and sections that annoyed me enough to rate the book 2 stars. (The clinical sex scenes and the girlie show at the carnival, why oh why is that even in the book??) I'll settle in the middle with a 3 star rating.
Sue Miller narrates her own book and has a pleasant reading voice.
June 1, 2020
I'm on a Sue Miller reading journey this year, (2020) having just discovered her writing and loving how she tells her stories. I'm working my way through all her books. Already ordered her next release in September of this year.
I enjoyed this book, but The Senator's Wife is still my personal favourite so far.
I felt I got to know each of the characters in this book, bot none really stuck with me. I did like the question of how to deal with someone who dies suddenly and tragically, someone who you'd intended to break up with and then what do you do? Not tell his family? Pretend you are grieving the loss too? As always Miller dives into some pretty deep questions about life.
Each character in this book have their own issues they deal with.
I enjoyed this book, but The Senator's Wife is still my personal favourite so far.
I felt I got to know each of the characters in this book, bot none really stuck with me. I did like the question of how to deal with someone who dies suddenly and tragically, someone who you'd intended to break up with and then what do you do? Not tell his family? Pretend you are grieving the loss too? As always Miller dives into some pretty deep questions about life.
Each character in this book have their own issues they deal with.
November 2, 2019
It's certainly readable. You've got that Rashomon thing going, several different POVs. And Sue Miller has a fine hand for detailed characterization. (Whenever I happen upon a book with her name on it, I grab it-- based solely on her "For Love," a novel of memorable power.)
So this one-- it's fine. But for me, it wasn't enough.
I read the characters' goings-on with some interest, feeling more sympathy for some than with others-- or perhaps I should say LESS sympathy for some. As I neared the end, I mostly hoped that the one I liked most would NOT walk into the sunset with that other one.
"For Love." THAT one.
So this one-- it's fine. But for me, it wasn't enough.
I read the characters' goings-on with some interest, feeling more sympathy for some than with others-- or perhaps I should say LESS sympathy for some. As I neared the end, I mostly hoped that the one I liked most would NOT walk into the sunset with that other one.
"For Love." THAT one.
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