Sue Miller Boeken

'Als Anna en Brian besluiten te scheiden, gebeurt dat op zeer vriendschappelijke wijze. Hun dochter Molly zal bij Anna blijven wonen. Brian verhuist naar een andere stad i.v.m. zijn werk, hertrouwt en komt regelmatig bij Molly op bezoek. Maar als Anna een nieuwe relatie begint met de kunstenaar Leo, die voor het eerst hartstochtelijke emoties bij haar wakker maakt, leidt dat tot een vrijere opvoeding van Molly. Brian vindt sexuele openheid eng en als Molly hem vertelt dat ze Leo's penis mag aanraken (een incident dat uit zijn verband wordt gehaald), leidt dat tot een gevecht tussen de ouders waarbij Anna het voogdijschap van Molly verliest.

Een tragische ongeluk geeft de hoofdpersoon inzicht in het karakter van haar broer en daardoor ook in haar eigen verleden.

Catherine Hubbard is at a crossroad in her San Francisco life. She is twice divorced - although she knows public opinion only seems to allow for one marital mistake - and her three children are grown and scattered. Then news comes that she has inherited her grandmother Georgia's home in Vermont. Putting her teaching job on hold, Catherine travels east to the house where she has frequently taken refuge, as a child from her mother's bouts of dementia and eventual suicide and later from the wreckage of her first marriage. Catherine finds in Vermont not only the ghosts of her own past but those of Georgia's as well. Diaries from the attic emerged of a young woman who had lost her own mother in her teens, who had been condemned to a sanitorium for tuberculosis, and there harboured a secret passion for a fellow patient. As Catherine increasingly comprehends the woman she has only ever known as a grandmother, she begins to feel as if she is living in two worlds, her own and Georgia's as a 'buried stream' below. With unforgettable characters so vivid you can almost see and touch them, THE WORLD BELOW is story telling at its most magical.

This stunning collection of 28 stories brings readers a literary portrait of the American family from 1894 to today. A collection of works that captures the essence of American families from living together and apart to loving and letting go.Regret / Kate Chopin --The lombardy poplar / Mary Wilkins Freeman --The widow's might / Charlotte Perkins Gilman --Old Rogaum and his Theresa / Theodore Dreiser --The sorrows of gin / John Cheever --I stand here ironing / Tillie Olsen --Simple and Counsin F.D. Roosevelt Brown / Langston Hughes --The sky is gray / Ernest J. Gaines --My Coney Island uncle / Harvey Swados --My son the murderer / Bernard Malamud --Final dwarf / Henry Roth --And Sarah laughed / Joanne Greenberg --Wedding day / Roberta Silman --The legacy of Beau Kremel / Stephen Wolf --Kiswana Brown / Gloria Naylor --Tuesdays / Mary Hedin --Afloat / Ann Beattie --Winterblossom garden / David Low --Old things / Bobbie Ann Mason --Starlight / Marian Thurm --The writer in the family / E.L. Doctorow --The rich brother / Tobias Wolff --My legacy / Don Zacharia --Violation / Mary Gordon --Appropriate affect / Sue Miller --What I did for love / Lynne Sharon Schwartz --Still of some use / John Updike --Elephant / Raymond Carver

The eleven short stories in this collection concern the growing obsession of a young man, John, with the three pretty daughters of the Abbott family. But John's hand-to-mouth upbringing contrasts bitterly with the wealthy society life of the Abbotts, and to Alice, Eleanor and Pamela he will never be anything other than a "boy from the other side of the tracks".

Lottie's second marriage is in trouble. Cameron, Lottie's brother, is reunited with Elizabeth, a neighbour he has been in love with since high school. The three, together, learn that adulthood brings opportunities to find not only great love, but also suffer great loss.

At the age of 72, Lily Roberts becomes a national celebrity when she writes her spiritual memoirs. Her children, Alan and Clary, are disturbed by Lily's intimate revelations about her married life. Ten years on, Lily comes to live with Alan, and the bitterness threatens to upset their lives.

A compilation of twenty American short stories originally published in magazines and periodicals issued between January 2001 and January 2002, selected for inclusion by guest editor Sue Miller.

Have you ever imagined a different life? That's what the play was about, she was thinking abruptly. The wish to imagine what life could be, how it could change, if you were unencumbered. Did everyone who was married do this from time to time, imagine an unencumbered life?