Liars and Saints

 * "The Good Mother," by Sue Miller . This is an extraordinary novel about a woman who makes a mistake. She is drunk on love in the first few months after her divorce, and she allows her tiny daughter to sleep in a bed with her while she (the mom) finishes having sex with her boyfriend. People say that a good novel should make you worried; you should feel concerned about the narrator, and it's this concern that leads you to pick up the book again and again. Sue Miller knows how to be upsetting. Her debut novel--now called "iconic"--had a clear influence on Michelle Huneven, who wrote her own version of "The Good Mother" and called it "Blame." * "Woo Hoo! You're Doing Great!" Sandra Boynton has outdone herself with this tale of a masochistic chicken who comes dangerously close to self-destruction. That's actually the plot of the picture book. Suspenseful and astonishing. * "Everybody Knows," by Jordan Harper . In t...

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 toget...