Annie and Graham have an enduring happy marriage. They have a wonderful group of family and friends, a daughter Sarah who is especially close to her father. They are close to Lucas, Graham's son by his first marriage, and a lovely friendship with Graham's ex-wife. Graham owns a bookstore which is at the center of their community.

When Graham dies unexpectedly, Annie finds that her marriage may not have been exactly what she believed. As she processes her grief with the support of her friends and family, she comes to terms with Graham's death and the wonderful marriage they had despite some ups and downs.

At first I wasn't sure I liked this book, but I loved it in once I got into it.
It is important to read that happy marriages don't have to be perfect, and that it is possible to move forward and find happiness after great loss.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my favorite books for the month!! My first book by Sue Miller and I am now a huge fan!! She did such an amazing job of exploring "what is monogamy?" and "what does it mean?" I found myself looking back at my life throughout this whole book and I absolutely loved the ending!! Can't wait for her next one!!

while I love Sue Miller, I found this title wordy and without much of a plot. In my opinion, not her strongest work.

This was a beautifully written novel with well-developed characters. Sue Miller has skillfully showed us one marriage and other individuals who are part of it. I loved the writing as well as the reflection in this book - on love, relationships and circumstances in life. The dialogue between characters is believable and adds to the characters who comes to life in the pages. Annie and Graham are connected through a long marriage which joins their two personalities, dreams and love (as in most marriages). When Graham dies, Annie is devastated and bereft. The grief is tangible in the world she experiences after the loss and in the tasks with which she is faced. When Annie discovers that Graham had been unfaithful, she experiences anger and questions many aspects of their marriage. Miller does an artful job through dialogue and narration of revealing Annie's thought trajectory as well as the understanding that she eventually reaches. This is a well-crafted novel. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves stories about realistic relationships.

Marital Miss

Can a happy marriage survive death? Sue Miller’s eleventh novel attempts to answer that question in the artsy Cambridge, Massachusetts community of artsy, middle-aged and older folks with vintage cars, rental houses and owned cottages, dinner parties and infidelity. Graham and Annie are each on their happy second marriage when he ends a brief affair the day before he dies of a (expected? big man with a voracious appetite for drink, food, life) heart attack in their bed. Annie spends the next months full of the grief you don’t want to imagine when she discovers from his ex-wife that he’d been cheating on her. Her widowhood takes a turn while you wait for the confrontation (spoiler: never happens in an unsatisfying twist). With Miller’s unflinching inclusion of sex, honest take on the complicated relationship to one’s children/parents, and a glass of wine in every scene after 4 p.m., Monogamy is a flushed out look at mature love, living the artful life, unexpected third acts, and New England flora.

Wendy Ward
http://wendyrward.tumblr.com/

This is one of the best novels I've read in awhile and reminds me of why I've loved Sue Miller for so long. Her ability to maintain interest and even suspense in a book about relationships and the passage of time is pure Miller. The characters (except for one who nauseated me but appears late in the book and rather briefly), are so brilliantly sculpted that they are real, flawed, fascinating people I loved spending time with. I could absolutely envision them and even hear them, see their gestures, and feel their energy. The story/stories take place over decades - to quote a bit from the book: "This is one of the things Graham loves about having lived in the same place for so long - the layers of time you're always moving through". The characters and layers of time form a matrix that is like an intricate but absolutely coherent and compelling cat's cradle. The relationships between characters as they change over time and as their own insights develop are fascinating and emotionally gripping. It might be fair to say that time itself is a character. Allow me to quote a favorite paragraph: "She thought of some of the paintings of Vuillard,or Bonnard - the figures half seen, the rooms themselves more the subject than the people in them. But rooms suffused with the feeling of a liminal presence. Or with the feeling of an absence - but an absence full of implication, of mystery."

This novel is a breathtaking example of how literary prose and a compelling writer can discuss complex themes over the course of a novel.
While on the surface, this novel is about relationships, marriage, love, betrayal, and fidelity...the subtext of this novel is the definitions we put on these ideas and social standards, and how we experience our lives through those lens.
The novel was a bit slow, but I am partial to a faster pace in my fiction. But that does not detract from the excellent wordsmith. Sue Miller has given a tremendous novel, and it is both thought-provoking, intimate, and devastating.

This is an in depth look at a marriage of infidelity. Graham, the husband, discusses his affairs with his first wife Frieda. His second wife, Annie, finds out her husband wasn’t the man she thought he was. The characters change their perspectives throughout the story but frankly I became bored with the dissection. I am sure many book clubs will enjoy. There are many aspects to discuss.

Monogamy is a mature introspection on love, relationships, marriage, deceipt and loss. An incredible journey into Annie and Graham’s marriage. Or how a couple can be happily married but still..

This book made me think about myself and my relationships with the people in my life. We do not change people; we can help them see things in different prospectives, we can teach them things, show them how much we love them or care for them, but we cannot change who they are.

Sur Miller masters character development. All characters are so strong, meaty, perfect in their imperfections, and come off as so real.

If you enjoy psychological literature, strong character development, and pushing the envelope into understanding the complexity of humans, this book is for you.

While I know this is receiving great reviews I felt that it was an ‘old fashion’ book. I understood the complexity of the family, the overpowering father much loved who in his own way damaged so many of the family members and the unbelievable finding love at the end.

I liked this book a lot. It was consistent in Miller's style and I was not disappointed. This book is about Annie and Graham, who have been married for over 30 years. It is important to know that this is the second marriage for both. Annie is an introverted photographer and Graham is an extrovert with a HUGE personality. Self-described as, "a loud fat man who spends more of his time away from home, glad-handing everyone I see, than I should. I drink too much. I have to have everyone's love." Yep, that sums him up...kinda, there is more. He also owns a book store in Cambridge, MA. And he does.

Graham and his first wife Frieda have a son, Lucas, and they have remained very close since their divorce. Frieda and Annie are also close. There were times when Lucas was a teenager that he spent more time with Annie than with his own mother. Graham and Annie have a daughter together, Sarah. Sarah and Annie have a conflicted relationship. Graham, however, is at the center of everyone's life.

When Graham dies, about 100 pages into the novel, Annie becomes aware that Graham was having an affair. His infidelities were the major reason Frieda ended her marriage with him and Annie thought her relationship with Graham was different. Many things come into play after this and I don't wish to spoil anything. I enjoyed this book as I always enjoy Sue Miller. This is her style and her wheelhouse andshe writes the domestic drama like no one else- except maybe Joyce Carol Oates.

What a treat that Sue Miller gave us a look into the minds of each main character in the book. As the story began, I thought I’d be reading about Annie. But this was a story about Graham and Frieda too, and their web of family and friends. Miller writes with abundant detail. Another writer might have told this story with a fraction of the nuance and fine points, but the way Miller writes gives the story feeling. I cried during parts of the book because I was feeling it so much. Reading this book has me wanting to explore other titles by Sue Miller.

Miller is a solidly reliable writer whose often visited territory of relationships is a place she seems at home. This is certainly the case with her new novel which takes a broad and forgiving perspective on one particular husband and his impact on wives, children and their larger circle. Is it a bold book? Not especially. But it’s thoughtful and careful and engrossing. And not unfamiliar.

I listened to the audio book version. I think the choice of narrator was spot on. This is a leisurely stroll through the woods in autumn type of book. It is more about the journey then the destination. I am in my 50s. I don’t think my younger self would have liked it.

This is the perfect character study and was so well written and readable! No one can wrote like this author, who adds another clear winner to her repertoire.

Love, monogamy, relationships, grief, daily life.
While I was looking forward to reading this book, I didn't quite get in the groove with it. It starts off intriguing, maybe about the first third or so of the book. And you wonder how things will intertwine and come to play. But it was a little too everyday life and not enough to grab me in any way, a slow read, and sad, but in a monotonous average life kind of way. I wanted a build up to something that will happen, but nothing really happens. I didn't connect with any characters enough to care if anything happens. If things happen, they just happen. I enjoy a book as an escape, or inspiration, or sad, but sad in a way that fully grabs my emotion...and this just sort of felt like a flat reality. Just not my kind of read I suppose.

I enjoyed the story of Annie and Graham. When I first selected this book to read, I read only a small portion of the synopsis. For some reason, after reading at least a quarter of the book, I saw more of the description. Sadly, the information included in this description, which I assume is part of the blurb, exposed spoilers I would have preferred not knowing.

My first Sue Miller book was The Good Mother, and I still own that copy. Miller writes so well about domestic and family life, and the reader is drawn into the lives of the characters, all their good points and negative aspects.

Graham and Annie have been married for thirty years when Graham suddenly dies. Their marriage has been rich and satisfying--Graham is a book store owner and Annie is a photographer, and they have enjoyed each other and a wonderful group of friends. But marriages have secrets, and Annie has to come to terms with very serious breach of marriage vows. She has to examine herself and her husband, the intricacies of their relationship and friendships, and move through the grief process with the underlying disappointment in her husband and his infidelities.

Sue Miller is back with Monogamy! I thought perhaps I'd missed a book but no, she spent 6 years writing this one while changing agents and publishers. She has crafted a realistic story of a marriage and the death of a husband, as Goodreads shares in its summary.

The book is widely character driven as the reader gets to know Annie, Graham, Frieda, and the kids, Lucas and Sarah. It is Annie's character that is challenged and reshaped primarily. Unfortunately for Annie, Graham had a secret when he died, a secret that when Annie runs smack dab into it, challenges the grief she was feeling regarding Graham's death. Frieda, Graham's first wife who became a friend of Annie's, knows that Graham cheated on Annie but kept it to herself, which is jeopardizing their friendship, even though Graham is the guilty party. Sarah, Annie's daughter with Graham, and Lucas, Frieda's son with Graham, are well-adjusted children who must struggle with the loss of their father and the difficulties each mother is dealing with.

Sue Miller is one of the best writers of women's fiction out there along with Anita Shreve and Jodi Picoult. This is her 11th book. She lives in Boston with her writer husband, Douglas Bauer.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting September 2, 2020.

I would like to thank Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

Don't waste your time. The plot is completely unimaginable and the characters are very one dimensional. I ended up having the main characters, not one had a redeeming quality.