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Inventing the Abbotts and Other Stories by Sue Miller β€” book cover

Inventing the Abbotts and Other Stories

by Sue Miller
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Overview

Sue Miller's stories from a chapter in the moral history of our time

Like Sue Miller's bestselling novels, this collection of short stories explores the treacherously shifting ground of erotic and family relationships with deftness and depth. The title story is about a young man who takes up successively with three daughters of the most fashionable family in town. In other stories, whose characters range from a young girl in the first blush of sexual curiosity to a stricken dowager whose seizures release a brutal and sometimes obscene candor, Sue Miller presents a compelling gallery of contemporary men and women with hungry hearts and dismayed consciences.

Synopsis

Sue Miller's stories from a chapter in the moral history of our time

Like Sue Miller's bestselling novels, this collection of short stories explores the treacherously shifting ground of erotic and family relationships with deftness and depth. The title story is about a young man who takes up successively with three daughters of the most fashionable family in town. In other stories, whose characters range from a young girl in the first blush of sexual curiosity to a stricken dowager whose seizures release a brutal and sometimes obscene candor, Sue Miller presents a compelling gallery of contemporary men and women with hungry hearts and dismayed consciences.

Publishers Weekly

In this moving and articulate collection of 11 stories, the author of The Good Mother describes individuals trying, but failing, to connect emotionally in a society where ``all the rules have changed.'' PW praised Miller's ``insight into character and gift for describing contemporary relationships.'' (June)

About the Author, Sue Miller

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.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this moving and articulate collection of 11 stories, the author of The Good Mother describes individuals trying, but failing, to connect emotionally in a society where ``all the rules have changed.'' PW praised Miller's ``insight into character and gift for describing contemporary relationships.'' (June)

Library Journal

This collection follows the author's impressive debut, The Good Mother ( LJ 5/15/86). In the title story a young man tells the absorbing tale of his elder brother's involvement with three sisters of small-town social prominence. Other stories also reflect Miller's intense preoccupation with the delicacy of relationships among parents, children, wives and husbands, the married and divorced, lovers. ``The Quality of Life'' depicts emotional complexities within a family marked by separations and rivalries. ``Tyler and Brina,'' ``Travel,'' and ``Expensive Gifts'' all concern the tentative dependence and isolation of women, their strengths, the needines of their men. Readers of Miller's novel will again appreciate her fastidiousness and clarity, her sobering vision of the moral dilemmas of modern middle-class life. Mary Soete, San Diego P.L., Cal.

Book Details

Published
January 1, 1999
Publisher
HarperCollins Publishers
Pages
192
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780060929978

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