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The Senator's Wife: A Novel
Unavailable
The Senator's Wife: A Novel
Unavailable
The Senator's Wife: A Novel
Audiobook10 hours

The Senator's Wife: A Novel

Written by Richard Webber

Narrated by Blair Brown

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

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.

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.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 8, 2008
ISBN9780739358528
Unavailable
The Senator's Wife: A Novel
Author

Richard Webber

Richard Webber writes regulary about TV in his job as a journalist and writer. He contributes to a host of newspapers and magazines, including TV Quick, Daily Express, Sunday Express and the Sunday Telegraph and is the author of over a dozen books celebrating classic comedy.

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Reviews for The Senator's Wife

Rating: 3.341252831101512 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

463 ratings48 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not sure my opinion on this book. Another book I read during my recovery. Might need to read this one again as I wasn't sure the point or the reason. However, judging from the views on amazon.com, I'm not the only one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was on my to be read list for several years so I was thrilled to run across a copy. I mainly read thriller/mystery but every once in a while something other than will pique my interest. Though Miller does a great job of moving through current and past and between characters, I do think this suffered a bit due to the current political climate. It was too much of a down memory lane story. My chief complaint would be that in the end Nathan came out as a total moron instead of the deservedly haf wit moron he was.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I've never read Sue Miller, so I don't know if this book is representative of her work. If it is, I won't read her again. The title character is Delia Naughton, married to a Kennedy-esque philanderer until she finally boots him out, allowing him in and out of her life both for politics and for love. Much of the book is from the viewpoint of her young neighbor Meri, an unhappy new mother who develops a fascination/obsession with Delia and her husband Tom.For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I can't say much about the denouement except that it is, in my opinion, icky, and just very odd. And I will break my usual rule and make the annoying comment that I found the characters unlikable. For all that this is "women's fiction," it read to me like an ode to the Male-Identified Woman, and I can't identify with that at all.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A well written book that keeps you turning the pages. It explores the relationship between neighbors, one a young wife and one an older wife of a politician who has made her peace with her husbands philandering ways. the ending is somewhat unsetteling.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Interesting, engaging characters. The story is original and I enjoyed it uniqueness.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love the writing, the finely observed insights, and the narration of two alternating women.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is not my usual fare but it was a very interesting read. It explores the lives of two women in two different generations. It's really a beautifully told story with very interesting characters.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    At its heart, this is a book about womanhood and the things women experience but rarely talk about. It is about marriage and intimacy and the complexity of interwining one’s life with another person, and it is about trials and forgiveness and the fact that there is no one right way to make a relationship work. Most of all, this is a book about truth. Sue Miller tells it like it is, and she takes you right there, right into the moment and into the hearts and minds of her characters.And man, is she good at it. I mean, really, really good. Sue Miller, where have you been all my life?Women young and old, married and single, and of all walks of life will relate to and be drawn into this phenomenal novel. The Senator’s Wife is a discussion starter, a call to dialogue between women, and proof of just what can happen when we are willing to explore the truth about our emotions and our experiences in all of their messiness and complexity. Miller knows that relationships are not clean and simple, and in allowing her characters the freedom to grapple with important and difficult questions about their lives, she encourages us to do the same.If you’re looking for a good book club selection or an unputdownable, unforgettable read, put The Senator’s Wife at the top of your list. I’ll be sharing it with anyone who will listen.Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    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. The book's OK - I didn't really like Meri much - the ending was a bit of a surprise and that helped a bit.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    story of lives in a duplex house. Interesting tale woven together with a few twists and turns.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Years ago Sue Miller became one of my favorite authors. I've read all of her books, and like the others, I enjoyed this one too.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    rabck from dvg; Mostly about Delia - the Senator's wife, although I didn't understand why part of the story was about Meri also until the end. Delia has been married for years to former senator Tom Naughton. They live apart because of Tom's chronic infidelity, but yet Delia never divorces him. When it's convenient for her, she arranges a get-away for them together, and they act like long lost lovers. When Tom, late in life, has a stroke, Delia brings him into her house to care for him, only to discover that despite his body being maimed by the stroke, he still has his wits and a roving eye.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sue Miller is another thoroughly reliable author, and this novel held me gripped throughout. The developing relationship between the two sets of neighbours - one newly married and one secretly separated - is very good indeed. I thought the portrait of a new marriage (the result of a whirlwind relationship) was simply top-notch, though I also enjoyed how the two women neighbours gradually take over the scenes. In essence, it becomes a novel about what women hide and what they reveal, and that's no bad thing. The powerful and bitter end is almost perfect - though I would have liked to have had another scene or two with the older woman neighbour as that would have rounded it off more effectively. Still, Miller is always quietly brilliant and I can recommend this one for sure.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Great writing, however the story was slow-moving. An interesting twist near the end will keep you thinking about this book for days/months to come.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am going to talk a bit about plot - spoilers ahead.***I found this book very readable. I haven't read any Sue Miller before and was pleased with how engaging the story was from the very start.I liked having two characters to follow - two women at different parts of their life. I found the slow unfolding of all the details of their life really satisfying. That is - until the last 1/3 or so of the book. It sort of fell apart for me in that I stopped liking Meri - the younger of the two protagonists. Her relentless negative views on pregnancy and motherhood were really grating to me.As for Delia - I felt like her character who had so much going for her - so much direction - became an unrecognizable mess towards the end of the book. I felt like the transformation for both was too abrupt to be believable and really ruined the flow of the narrative for me.As for the end end of the novel. I thought it was just too bizarre and contrived for the book - I also thought that it was really strange not to follow up with Delia after "the event" (what I will call it- to soften the spoilage) and that it left me with a feeling of being unbalanced that I didn't get to know about her life after "the event".Anyway - I really liked this book up until all of a sudden I didn't.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It took me longer than usual to finish this book...but it was nice to savor it and let it soak in. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it, I just liked it. It's a story of two women's lives and how one man changed them both, though that's not clear until the end. Interesting read...
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Should be titled The Senator's Wife and Her Neighbour. More intelligence than chick lit, but not great. The Senator is very unfaithful, and even though she doesn't live with him anymore, she still loves him and essentially they have a lifelong love affair. Until he's had a stroke and she takes him back in. Not too give away too much, but she finally clues in. The neighbours: the author makes it look like they're going to break up, too, but in the epilogue they're still together. I guess the book is about learning to live and love in marriage? I don't know. There are just too many narrative details that are totally irrelevant to the story that are probably supposed to make it real, but just weigh the story down.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm not totally sure how I feel about this one. It was a little bit slow reading at times, with bursts of interesting bits that kept me going. I guess what I like is the big picture of the story. It makes you think. This would be a great book club book because the differing opinions about the characters would fly!I had a lot of misconceptions about the players. I thought I knew who was going to do whom wrong, then their personalities switched on me and the story ended up surprising me. I felt kind of heartbroken at the end for everyone except Meri. I think she got off too easily for all her years of sneaky and cowardly behavior. I realize people can make regrettable mistakes and not be unlikable or unforgivable forevermore, but the little I got to know Meri, I had a hard time finding compassion for her. I don't know how she did it, but the author even got me feeling sorry for the smarmy senator, even though he justly reaped what he sowed. Definitely thought provoking.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Started interestingly enough but I could NOT believe the ending. It's as though the author was in some kind of hurry and needed to end the novel any which way. I could not believe that that could have been the completion of the novel, I thought to myself there must be more but sadly no. What an incredulous and disappointing end to a novel that travelled along at such a nice leisurely pace. Sadly I will not pick up another Sue Miller novel....just my thoughts anyway.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The characters did not interest me very much so I didn't finish it.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I tried to like this book, I really did. I began it on audio then realized I had it on my bookshelf. I found it so boring and irritating, I didn't finish listening to it. I pulled the book from my shelf last night to read the last chapter. I found both of the women weak and annoying, and the book took far too long for anything of substance to happen. I typically read a book in a day or two, and this thing took a month to complete.If your tastes lean towards more literary women's fiction, then perhaps this may be up your alley, but I wouldn't spend money on it, I'd just get it from the library.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A perfectly readable and enjoyable book, but it felt like 90% of it was introduction, and it only got round to the point of the story in the last few pages. Interesting though.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I remember picking this up in the bookshop a couple of years ago - it was all over the place as a Richard & Judy choice I think - and putting it back down again without buying it. This time I spotted it going cheap in a book clearance shop and did buy it because I'd really enjoyed reading The Lake Shore Limited a few months ago. The story is told from two points of view. One of these is the viewpoint of the senator's wife herself, Delia, but the main one is that of Meri, who moves into the house next door to her as a newlywed trying to find her niche in both a new place and her new role of wife. I like the changing viewpoints and the changes in time - much of the "present day" story takes place in the 1990s with sections going back to earlier in Delia's life. I was surprised to read other reviews where people said they didn't like the characters or the writing as I liked both very much. I didn't always like the characters actions but I thought everything fit together well and everything was in character. I guess I like the way Miller incorporates so much everyday ordinariness into the story - the overall story is anything but ordinary but it is built up of regular components. I can see why this is considered to be a real "book group" book - there is plenty to talk about in the portrayal of the relationships. The only part I thought was lacking was any real fleshing out of Meri's husband Nathan who seemed for the most part to be a generic "ambitious young academic in New England". Maybe that was deliberate. I won't go into the ending as I don't want to spoil it for anyone. Only that I thought something of the sort was inevitable and I thought it was pretty well signposted and since it wasn't really a surprise to me it didn't really shock me. I'm not sure if it was supposed to. All in all, a really interesting read, and really very good. I liked it but didn't find it as deep and complicated, or as satisfying, as The Lake Shore Limited. I'll definitely be reading more of Miller's books before too long.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I wasn’t massively keen on this. Though it brought its themes together quite impressively at the end, the first half plodded dreadfully, the characters real enough but not people I could warm to. The most frustrating thing was that the small spark of mystery ignited within the first few chapters (Where Is The Senator?) is immediately snuffed out as the author whizzes through the wife’s back-story in a few paragraphs. Later we are treated to that same back-story with more detail fleshed out, but it’s a bit frustrating as we already know what’s going to happen!Perhaps I was hoping to learn what senators actually do – here in the UK we only hear about them when they’re kicking lumps out of BP executives, but I was not much enlightened here. This particular senator is a randy old goat, but presumably that can’t be said of all of them.There’s a lot of sex, pretty toe-curling stuff in places, as well as a lot of frank talk about bodily processes, pregnancy, childbirth and icky women’s stuff. Sort of Woman’s Weekly with the gloves off. I am generally a fan of Sue Miller but this one just didn’t do it for me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Intriguing, but I really did not like the character of Meri. I found her selfish, sabotaging, and greedy. A slow read for me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This novel is not her best. She cuts between a young woman and her husband and an older woman and hers. In the latter case, the man is a philandering, charismatic ex-Senator, and this couple's tale is far more compelling. The woman acknowledges that even though he hurt her repeatedly in seeing other women, the ex-Senator is the love of her life. Miller short circuits the predictable climax.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A book like this reminds me of what good writing is. I've read several books this summer and it's such a relief to be in the hands of an author who has the gift of being able to tell a story from varying viewpoints, and who can create flawed, complex characters who are likable. I think the two may be connected.I think this is one of her better books, and I've liked all of her books so far
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I like all Sue Miller's books and this is no exception. I thought it was a great picture of "this kind" of marriage which doesn't seem to be all that out of the ordinary these days. I really could understand and sympathize with Delia, how she lived her life and remained in love with her charming but totally self-centered, narcissistic husband who was not unlike many of the men found in politics and elsewhere. I found Meri an annoying, self-centered, sneaky and sullen character with a lot of problems -- she was undoubtedly supposed to be this way, but I wish she had been held a bit more responsible in some way.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I was deeply stirred by the way in which the two women characters in this novel were portrayed. Miller's descriptions of their lives are at once beautiful yet so real. I loved the fact that the two townhouses seem to be characters in and of themselves. That said, I was rather disappointed in the ending. It seemed a bit too provocative, and overdone.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Serious, complex, well written