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The Senator's Wife | 
 enlarge | Author: Sue Miller
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $4.00
You Save: $20.95 (84%)
New (44) Collectible (5) from $7.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  81 reviews
Sales Rank: 4250
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.5
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307264203
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307264206
ASIN: 0307264203
Publication Date: January 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Cover wear and may contain some marks or writing. Keen Northwest ships in 2 business days or less. Refunds for any reason if item returned within 30 days of shipment.
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Product Description
Once again Sue Miller takes us deep into the private lives of women with this mesmerizing portrait of two marriages exposed in all their shame and imperfection, and in their obdurate, unyielding love. The author of the iconic The Good Mother and the best-selling While I Was Gone brings her marvelous gifts to a powerful story of two unconventional women who unexpectedly change each other’s lives.
Meri is newly married, pregnant, and standing on the cusp of her life as a wife and mother, recognizing with some terror the gap between reality and expectation. Delia Naughton—wife of the two-term liberal senator Tom Naughton—is Meri’s new neighbor in the adjacent New England town house. Delia’s husband’s chronic infidelity has been an open secret in Washington circles, but despite the complexity of their relationship, the bond between them remains strong. What keeps people together, even in the midst of profound betrayal? How can a journey imperiled by, and sometimes indistinguishable from, compromise and disappointment culminate in healing and grace? Delia and Meri find themselves leading strangely parallel lives, both reckoning with the contours and mysteries of marriage, one refined and abraded by years of complicated intimacy, the other barely begun.
Here are all the things for which Sue Miller has always been beloved—the complexity of experience precisely rendered, the richness of character and emotion, the superb economy of style—fused with an utterly engrossing story that has a great deal to say to women, and men, of all ages.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 76 more reviews...
 An Unconventional Look at Two Marriages September 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
*****
This is a beautiful novel, a lovely and unusual view of the complexities of marriage. A compelling and suspenseful read, the depths of the emotions of two women from two different generations and their respective marriages are explored. The marriages are very different on the surface, yet similar in other ways. For example, in both marriages, the women make adjustments for their children and accommodations for their husbands---how do these change them?
The author writes about the feelings of Delia and Meri in a way that is raw and authentic, a way that plumbs the shadow side of marriage and how a marriage can change over a lifetime.
People looking for a pat story, conventional and formulaic for our times---about betrayal, the inevitable divorce (of course), and the newly independent woman finding herself---will be disappointed. Instead, readers will find out how these women adapt and grow and even thrive through betrayal, neglect, and their various problems.
"The Senator's Wife" is a novel about love and courage and strength. It is not a spoiler that Delia's husband Tom is unfaithful, and the way she deals with this is, in my opinion, courageous, committed, and loving. Delia makes the choice that is right for her and so risks the disapproval and contempt of her children and apparently, of many reviewers here. Her subsequent choices are seen by some as controlling and shallow; I disagree and think that they are counter-cultural, brave, and authentic. Delia does exactly what she wants to do and this to me is what empowerment is all about. So much of the time when a woman makes a choice that varies with the culture's prevailing norms of marriage she is criticized and attacked, like Delia.
If you are interested in the intricacies of long-term marriages and are open-minded about a woman's right to choose even when it differs from what society mandates for her, I think you will love this book. It is not superficial, and the characters are not superficial, even the two main male characters. I was not disappointed in any aspect of the experience of enjoying this novel!
I will be reading more Sue Miller.
Highly recommended.
*****
 Delia was not a martyr August 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having lived and worked in Washington, I was amazed at the number of readers who thought Delia was a martyr for this self-centered senator. In fact, she was an admirable opportunist. She figured out a way to have her man, have her own relationships and have Paris! Not that this would be everyone's choice - I mean, why get/stay married at all? But for Delia, who was somehow not just loyal to this man but adored him, it was a relationship that worked. I found that Miller's recitation of Delia's most quotidian moments - the little drink in the evening, accompanied by her favorite cheeses, etc. - was compelling in that it did not paint a portrait of a woman who was depressed, lonely and resentful. It painted her as making a life. She obviously dressed well, did her hair, wore red lipstick, etc., etc., and the reference to Paris was not coincidental. Many many European women are in marriages that resemble Delia's - even if their husbands are NOT in politics. [It was also why my Italian father inculcated in me the critical importance of "always having your own money." Delia obviously had access to the Senator's money, to live a life that she might not have chosen but which seemed to make her content.
As for Meri, I thought like many other readers that she was the ultimate self-centered opportunist, and a total baby. However, she too married a self-centered man. What we don't read about explicitly - but Miller deftly suggests - is that Meri's young professor husband also has his own ego-maniac issues as evidenced in his spending way too much time on campus and always has a lot of work to do on weekends that takes him away from Meri. Hmmm, wonder what HE was up to; Miller doesn't have to say this explicitly. If a follow-up book is called "The Professor's Wife" no spouse of any college professor would be surprised: the classroom is a "target-rich" environment for extramarital dalliances, as one of my MBA classmates asserts.
Finally, like many readers I found myself wondering toward the end of the book what was the point of the continued recitation of the daily lives of these people? I forced myself late in the evening to read the last 50 pages bleary-eyed because I couldn't stand the investment anymore! When it finally came and I read the explanation for the unfortunate turn of events, I was disappointed, but I also think it totally summed up the characters, and especially the character whose thoughts we read in the end. In any event, I too did not love this book, and if the setting had in fact been Washington itself we would have had many more juicy revelations, even with Delia in the same town as her philandering husband. It happens, that's how they live there, and that's the price they pay.
 "Isn't that what marriage is all about?...Staying in it while getting out in some way, too?" August 21, 2008
These are not the words of the unfaithful senator, but of the senator's wife, Delia.
Once again Sue Miller gives us a brilliantly written novel. When one reads Sue Miller one can see, smell, hear, taste as she describes. One is in the room, in the car with the characters, seeing their expressions, listening to their conversations. Miller has an uncanny understanding of human nature in all its ineptitude and messiness, as well as, in its amazing love and courage.
This is essentially the story of two women and their marriages: Delia, the senator's wife, who separates from, yet remains lovers and friends with her philandering husband, Tom, and Meri, a thirty-seven-year-old newly-married woman who moves in next door to Delia with her husband, Nathan.
(Spoiler Alert!) Delia's inability to give up her relationship with Tom is as destructive as Tom's inability to stop being unfaithful. Tom has a stroke, and Delia thinks he is finally hers now to take care of and keep all to herself. Yet Tom is still Tom even in his mostly incapacitated state. His lifelong weakness, combined with Meri's self-centered, ego-driven willingness, prove to be both Tom and Delia's final undoing. Delia finally says enough is enough, and she retreats, a broken old woman, to her daughter, Nancy, who, like so many others, could never understand her mother's devotion to her cad of a father in the first place. Nancy promptly places Tom in a nursing home. Meri lies to her husband about what took place that made Delia leave so abruptly, gets away with lying, and essentially lives happily ever after.
Many readers disliked the book because of the ending, and because it's difficult to become fond of or to respect these characters. Certainly one would have wished, at least, for all Meri's seeming love and admiration for Delia, that she would have been incapable of that betrayal. Yet, when one thinks carefully, such an ending wouldn't be in keeping with the Meri Miller has portrayed all along. Meri has always been promiscuous, sneaky, weak, love-starved, and self-centered. She is ever Meri, as Tom is ever Tom. One is glad that Delia, at least, finally has had enough and walks out, although, sadly, she does so much too late.
Miller doesn't ask us to like her characters, or to agree with them, or to condone their choices. She simply presents them as they are and forces the reader to deal with them. This, in my view, shows a great respect for her readership, as we are left to sort out our feelings about these characters and their choices long after we've finished the book.
Stupid Ending. July 23, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I had enjoyed the writing, up until near the end of the book. Made me sorry I had wasted my time. Did the author just not know how to end the book with something plausable? It was annoying.
Unusual and sad story July 21, 2008
This really was a very strange and sad story. it took me a while to get into the book and, initially, I had no feel whatsoever for Delia. That changed once there were chapters that focused on her, and I found myself liking her, although I could not quite "get" her. I really was unable to understand her motivation to stay in her marriage. Initially, I liked the Meri character, but over the chapters, I came to find her quite unlikeable in her narcissism and selfishness. And both Nathan and Tom felt totally elusive to me. And there seemed to be a total disconnect with the Meri at the very end in 2007.
That said, the novel had a very literary feel, and I agree with another reviewer who commented that it was reminiscent of Anne Tyler. I think this would be a worthwhile read for a book club.
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