Join Sue Miller and Michelle Huneven for a one-of-a-kind conversation about Sue’s new book Monogamy.

Purchase a ticket for this event and receive a complimentary copy of Monogamy, delivered right to your door.

“I wanted to write a book about someone in grief, and how after someone dies we see them in a different way. And I wanted it to be within a marriage.” Sue Miller

“A robust, character-driven examination of the inner workings of a lengthy marriage… The novel is grounded by vibrant prose, vividly portrayed secondary characters, and the resiliency of everlasting love…A spectacular, powerful return.” Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Miller takes on and renews familiar themes of trust and betrayal between husbands and wives, parents and children, and does so with her signature crystalline focus and boundless empathy. The grieving process is hard enough to endure without having to question everything one ever knew about the deceased, an emotional minefield Miller traverses with grace and authenticity that are both haunting and vital.” Booklist, Starred Review

“A haunting meditation on love, marriage, fidelity, betrayal, and loss…Miller’s work is magnificent and moving. Consider it for your next book club.” AARP Magazine

A brilliantly insightful novel, engrossing and haunting, about marriage, love, family, happiness and sorrow, from New York Times bestselling author Sue Miller.

Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years. A golden couple, their seemingly effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of friends and acquaintances.

Graham is a bookseller, a big, gregarious man with large appetites—curious, eager to please, a lover of life, and the convivial host of frequent, lively parties at his and Annie’s comfortable house in Cambridge. Annie, more reserved and introspective, is a photographer. She is about to have her first gallery show after a six-year lull and is worried that the best years of her career may be behind her. They have two adult children; Lucas, Graham’s son with his first wife, Frieda, works in New York. Annie and Graham’s daughter, Sarah, lives in San Francisco. Though Frieda is an integral part of this far-flung, loving family, Annie feels confident in the knowledge that she is Graham’s last and greatest love.

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

Then, while she is still mourning him intensely, she discovers that Graham had been unfaithful to her; and she spirals into darkness, wondering if she ever truly knew the man who loved her.

About Sue Miller

Sue Miller is recognized internationally for her elegant and sharply realistic accounts of the contemporary family. Her books have been widely translated and published in 22 countries around the world.

The Good Mother, the first of her ten novels, was an immediate bestseller (more than six months at the top of the New York Times charts). Subsequent novels include three Book-of-the-Month main selections: Family Pictures (a Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), While I Was Gone (an Oprah’s Book Club selection), and The Senator’s Wife. Her non-fiction book, The Story of My Father, was heralded by BookPage as a “beautiful, spare memoir about her relationship with her father during his illness and death from Alzheimer’s disease.” Her numerous honors include a Guggenheim and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship.

Sue is a committed advocate for the writer’s engagement with society at large, having held a position on the Board of PEN-American Center. For four years she was Chair of PEN New England, an active branch that worked with writing programs in local high schools and ran classes in prisons. She has taught fiction at, among others, Amherst, Tufts, Boston University, Smith, and MIT.

About Michelle Huneven

Michelle Huneven was born in Altadena, California. She received an M.F.A. at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. For many years her “day job” was reviewing restaurants and writing about food for the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, Gourmet and other publications.

Her first novel, Round Rock, was a New York Times notable book and a finalist for the LA Times First Fiction Award. Her second novel, Jamesland was also a New York Times notable book, a finalist for the LA Times Fiction Prize, and a winner of the Southern California Bookseller’s Award for Fiction. Her third novel, Blame, (Sarah Crichton Books, FSG, 2009), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Michelle has also received a GE Younger Writers Award and a Whiting Award for Fiction. She presently teaches creative writing at UCLA and lives with her husband, dog, cat, and African Grey parrot in the town where she was born.

Sue Miller

Monogamy