Distinguished Guest

The moving story of a mother and son that touches the deepest concerns about love, art, family, and life

Lily Maynard is proud, chilly, difficult, and has become a famous writer at age seventy-two. Now, stricken with Parkinson's disease and staying with her architect son Alan, Lily must cope with her fading powers as well as with disturbing memories of the events that estranged her from her children and ended her marriage. For Alan, her visit raises old questions about his relationship with her, about the choices he has made in his own life, and about the nature of love, disappointment, and grief. Profound and moving, The Distinguished Guest reveals a family trying to understand the meaning of its life together, while confronting inevitable loss and the vision of an immeasurably altered future.

Sue Miller's dramatic power and sensitivity to emotional issues are at their peak in The Distinguished Guest, the profound and moving story of a mother and son that touches the deepest concerns about love, art, family, and life. From the author of The Good Mother, For Love and Family Pictures.

The moving story of a mother and son that touches the deepest concerns about love, art, family, and life

Lily Maynard is proud, chilly, difficult, and has become a famous writer at age seventy-two. Now, stricken with Parkinson's disease and staying with her architect son Alan, Lily must cope with her fading powers as well as with disturbing memories of the events that estranged her from her children and ended her marriage. For Alan, her visit raises old questions about his relationship with her, about the choices he has made in his own life, and about the nature of love, disappointment, and grief. Profound and moving, The Distinguished Guest reveals a family trying to understand the meaning of its life together, while confronting inevitable loss and the vision of an immeasurably altered future.

New York Times Book Review

Ms. Miller depicts [her characters] with grace and elegance, enriching their perceptions with strands of connecting images and intertwined history...A very moving book.

Sue Miller is an expert in limning the pain of endings, but if this were the extent of her talents, she probably would not be as successful as she is. In Miller's books, one broken relationship often leads to the development of another. Her stories may not offer pat answers and perfect love stories, but readers find something more rewarding in the end.