Monogamy

She had excuses, if she wished to use them....Her husband had been remarkably handsome in a preppy kind of way--tall, with a thatch of blonde hair that flopped elegantly across his forehead..... 

"Monogamy" is an unusual new novel by an American legend, Sue Miller. 

Graham, the affable owner of a Cambridge bookstore, has a roving eye. Though Graham is happily married to an artist, Annie, Graham has big appetites, and he would maybe prefer an open marriage.

Graham manages his appetites with an occasional affair; late in life, he begins seeing Rosemary, a friend and recent survivor of a divorce. Elated, sickened, Graham can't help but share the details with a male colleague. "Rosemary waxes herself down there," he says, then he immediately feels repelled by his own tackiness.

When Graham dies, Annie begins a standard "mourning process"--or so she thinks. Having spotted an extremely weepy Rosemary at a memorial service, Annie "puts two and two together." Now she can't even feel consoled by warm memories of her dead husband. She just needs to wander around in a rage, month after month, unable to converse with the man who has wounded her.

That's the story. It takes some surprising paths. It's partly about memory, how we conveniently forget aspects of our own past, and how the buried things that we suddenly recall can change the way that we act in the present. The novel also addresses the gap between our imagined scenarios and our actual daily lives. And it underlines small ways in which we unconsciously seek revenge; it asks if the reasons we give for our own behavior are really the actual reasons for our behavior, time after time after time.

This is a brilliant book, and it's written by someone who is fearless and in her seventies. Sue Miller isn't afraid to point out how obnoxious it is to have to field a Shakespeare quote--or an Anne Lamott quote--from a friend, when you're in mourning. Miller also notes how banal most questions at "public readings" tend to be. (This is ballsy for a writer who must depend on actual public readings!) And Miller isn't afraid to be "slow"; you spend a great deal of time in characters' heads, and you don't mind, because the recorded thoughts and feelings are compelling.

This book does actually deserve the hype. I'm recommending it. Four stars.

P.S. Other moments I enjoyed. A young guy hears his mother address his own infant for the first time. (This is not sentimental. Nothing in the book is sentimental.) A couple has a hushed discussion: If the baby falls asleep in the car, in fancy clothing, do you wake the baby for a change of outfit? Or do you just let the baby sleep all night in the weird formalwear? .....I liked seeing my own life in print!