The Senator’s Wife

by: Sue Miller

Published by: Vintage

Reviewed by Jamie Driggers

Two women. Two lives. One barely beginning; the other wrapping things up. Completely opposite, yet strangely similar.

Meri is a newlywed embarking on a new life with her husband who is convinced a new home will bring his ideals for life to fruition. Delia, married decades to a well-known philanderer, has lived much of her life nearly alone on the other side of the shared wall of their attached townhome. Though the lives of these women seem distanced by more than that dividing wall, they are drawn together by mutual need and, oddly, similarities.

Is it possible for a book to be both staggeringly beautiful and completely awful all at the same time? The story and prose are wonderful. Wonderful. And yet finishing the book left me bereft for a week. I hit a point in the story at which it caused me physical pain to turn the page, so I had to put it down. I couldn’t leave the characters hanging there, though. They beckoned from the upside-down splayed pages. I ache with sadness, still, at the final pages.

Fans of the not-happy, but satisfying endings of Jodi Picoult will find in Sue Miller’s_The Senator’s Wife_ a remarkable read. One that you’ll beg your friends to read as well so that you can discuss it with someone. This book is more sensual that I would usually go for and I’m still not certain that the end of the journey justified the road traveled; however this book will long endure in my heart.