Monogamy audiobook

As the title seems to reflect, this book is about marriage, but it really is about so much more - grief, self awareness and discovery, about family and a father, mothers and their son and daughter and about friendships and yes about a husband and his wives. These relationships beg a number of thought provoking questions.Graham is a big man in all ways, a needy man, self centered, open to life’s experiences, a father, an ex husband, a husband, an adulterer, but everyone loves him. I can’t say I loved him, but yet I did liked him in some ways in spite of his flaws. He’s been married to Annie for thirty years, divorced from Frieda for longer than that and has a grown child with each of them. We come to know the people in his life through their relationships with him. That is the most striking thing about this story - how well we come to know the characters. It’s not just about their relationship with him, but with each other. Annie and Frieda are friends. Their children have great relationships with the women who are not their mother. Everyone loves everyone else. One big happy story, well as in life, not quite.Miller’s strength is in how she gives us a full sense of who they are and I felt as if I knew all of them. Such a realistic portrayal, with the good things about them and their imperfections . Just like most of us, a complex mix and so it makes for complex relationships, for self evaluations as the characters evaluate their feelings about Graham and about each other and most of all themselves. While it centers around a Graham, the story for me was about Annie’s journey. She was my favorite character and I was so interested in how things would be for her in the end. The writing is wonderful with Miller allowing us such an intimate look . There are no perfect relationships here, but there is genuine love . Can you really know someone, even after 30 years of marriage? Do our perceptions of people change after they die? Do you truly love someone if you are able to have an affair with another? How does one grieve when torn between grief and anger and disappointment? There’s a lot to ponder here. Having lived in Massachusetts for about five years, I enjoyed the familiarity with Cambridge where most of the novel is set. A captivating read for sure. I read this with my bookish friends Diane and Esil and as always we had a great discussion.I received an advanced copy of this book from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

I listened to Sue Miller narrate her own novel, “Monogamy”. It’s a “quiet” story about a marriage (surprise), and its quiet strength is in all the character’s thoughts. This is not an action-packed story. It’s a slow story revolving around the marriage of Annie and Graham. They have been married for over thirty years when Annie wakes up to a dead Graham. Graham is only in his mid-sixties, so it comes as a shock to Annie and all the characters in the story. Their marriage is the second marriage for both. Graham’s first marriage was an “open” marriage, in which his first wife found that she didn’t want to be in such a marriage. Frida and Graham had a son, so Graham kept in close contact with them. When Graham remarried Annie, remarkably the two women became friends. Graham and Annie had a daughter Sarah, and Sarah and the son basically grew up together. Both children are adults when Graham dies, and both come to Annie’s aid after the death, along with Frida. After the death of Graham, the reader learns of their relationships to each other. It’s an interesting character study of an extended family. When Annie learns of Graham having an affair, at Graham’s memorial service, this information adds depth to the characters and their reaction to this knowledge.It’s mostly about Annie though. It’s a story of Annie reflecting on her life with Graham. It’s Annie coming to terms with the affair. It’s Sue Miller’s prose that make this a thought-provoking read. It’s lush with poignant thoughts. I’m not sure this is a novel for everyone. It’s meditative and reflective. I enjoyed it because I’m Annie’s age and I could relate to much of it (not the dead husband thank god….nor the cheating husband…to my knowledge). However, if I found out my husband did have an affair, I can see myself wrestling with the same emotions that Annie did. I enjoyed Miller’s narration, as I felt she provided the emotional impact of her voice that helped with her intentions of the prose. I found it a provocative read.

At one point in this immensely readable and page-turning new novel, one of the characters describes why we read fiction: “…because it suggests that life has a shape and we feel…consoled.” Fictional narrative, she goes on to say, makes life seem to matter.It is that quality that I’ve enjoyed most in Sue Miller’s novels. Here, she sets up a storyline of a 30-year marriage: Graham is an oversized man in every sense of the word, guided by his appetite for life; Annie, his more reserved wife, is a photographer who in some ways lives in his shadow. When Graham suddenly dies—and we know this from the book jacket and blurbs—Annie and her good friend (Graham’s first wife Frieda) and their two adult children (Frieda’s son is Lucas and Annie’s is Sarah) need to navigate that painful road to self-understanding and, for some more than others, forgiveness.Part of doing so means embracing what marriage and monogamy really mean. “Is it the wounds inflicted, back and forth, the inevitable disappointments, the unbridgeable distances?” Or is it a more consoling and transcendental concept that a person can be secure in knowing that their spouse chose them and only them…on their wedding day and every single day thereafter? Do monogamy and trust go hand-in-hand? Is it possible to truly love and NOT be monogamous?The shape of each character emerges and Sue Miller displays a spot-on ability to mine the emotions and the desires of each one. We—the readers—feel as if we know them and understand their insecurities, their wants and needs, their misguided choices, and the yearning for love and connection that makes their lives matter. Most importantly, we want each of them to be happy or at least, somewhat fulfilled.The author’s enormous sensitivity to her characters made her choice of dwelling on their physical appearance a little disconcerting. Frieda, for example, is repeatedly referred to as homely and/or plain. The descriptor was fine for the first time or two, but the repetition was unnecessary. After the focus shifts from Graham, the narrative slows down a bit (one character, a pianist and old friend of Annie’s, may not be entirely needed).These are quibbles. Let it be said that I deliciously turned pages, immersed in this psychologically astute book and the world Sue Miller so painstakingly created. A heartfelt thanks to Harper books for giving me the privilege to be an early reader in return for an honest review. #MonogamyBook.

Miller is a prolific writer, but this was my first time reading her work. I listened to this on audio, and thought the novel was wonderful in this format. It's the rare fiction author who narrates their own work, but Miller's narration of her story was top-notch. Graham and Annie have a strong 30 year marriage. Graham owns a bookstore, and this is a fun thread throughout the novel because much of the couples' life revolves around bookstore events (they met at an author event!). Early in the book—this is not a spoiler—Graham suddenly dies. This prompts Annie to reflect on their life together, and in the process she trips over new information about him and their life together, causing her to question the very foundations of their relationship. A sad, wistful, reflective literary story about marriage, happiness, and family.

With a title like, “Monogamy”, you know going in that it’s going to be, in part, about adultery. And it is. But most essentially it’s about marriage, grief, family, and our uniquely American culture regarding these things. This is the first new novel by Sue Miller in six years, and I sat down and devoured it as I have all her others; to further press the metaphor, as after a delicious and plentiful meal, in the end I felt happily satiated.“Monogamy” is the story of a particular marriage, that of Graham and Annie. Graham owns a bookstore in the Boston area, and Annie is a professional photographer. They have one daughter, and also make room in their lives for Graham’s first wife, and his son by her. Don’t expect to always like these characters, for Miller has skillfully written them as flawed yet relatable humans. That’s all I’ll say about the story because it’s all I would want to know going in. A few other impressions I had of the novel: one is that this novel will be particularly enjoyable for English Majors (I are one!) It is rich in literary references, allusions, and “hidden” quotes, for Literature fans to love, but not so many or so obscure as to bother anyone else.One of the other things I enjoyed about reading of Graham and Annie’s lives is that it was all SO FOREIGN to me. I’ve never lived on the east coast or in an urban area. I don’t have a social life that in any way resembles Graham and Annie’s (heck, I’m not even married much less in a long marriage) and I have no experiences with things like artist colonies or summer homes. Graham and Annie’s life together is familiar to me only through novels such as this one. Toward the end of the book there is a wonderful section where Annie meets someone that she knew more than thirty years previously. It’s beautifully written and humanizes Annie more than any other part of her life story, in part because she recognizes her own vanity through honest self-reflection, and because what happens at this reunion is something that could easily happen to any one of us “of a certain age”.I read “Monogamy” during the early summer of COVID-19, and I hope that by the time it comes out after Labor Day Sue Miller will be able to do the press tour that had been planned for it!

My first (finished) read of 2022, and it's a five-star book. Why have I only just heard of Sue Miller? At least now I have her seven previous novels to go and read. I listened to this while doing the world's hardest jigsaw. It's read by the author and is absolutely wonderful - detailed, precise emotions that Miller gets down in such a tender moving way. Really not much happens. Annie meets Graham at the opening of his bookshop in the 1980s and they fall in love and marry. He is a fat man and greedy for everything life brings: food, women, love. This is the story of their thirty-year marriage and what happens afterwards. Devastating. Brilliant.

Sue Miller’s MONOGAMY is a slow burn rather than a bright flame. Focusing on married couple Annie and Graham (second marriage for both), the chapters alternate between characters and time periods. The plot is more like a through-line in the story than a sequence of events, but before the end of the novel, you’ll see that the grief process is the main “action.” Grief associated with death, yes, but also other kinds of grief. Miller’s strength in conveying the pain of loss was authentic, moving, and realistic. Graham is the lodestar of the story, the pivot point, but the other characters have their own inner lives, also. Annie and her daughter, Sarah, have a tendency to look at their emotional wounds from multiple angles, obsessively, and allow the anguish to eat at them.This is a nuanced character study, chiefly interior—reflective, thoughtful, complex, with a keen emotive quality that is both quiet and disquieting. Don’t look for passion, carnage, active adventure. The author instead deftly constructed a cerebral but also visceral narrative. I know that I provided a lot of descriptors, which may or may not be helpful for a potential reader curious about the premise and the dynamics of this book. This is the most stately, restrained, and measured of all of Sue Miller’s novels. The voice and tone of MONOGAMY reveal the private hells of people who share blood or bond but carry despair privately, often silently. Secrets intensify their loneliness, and the burdens they shoulder create deep, yawning wounds that hemorrhage when disturbed.Blended family issues raise tensions between them, and revelations bleed through with Miller’s artless subtlety. Graham, a partnered owner of a Boston bookstore, is the most gregarious and generous of the family, a big man with a big voice and big appetites. An oversized Teddy Bear, warm and devoted. Overwhelming at intervals, and periodically oblivious to the guilt and distress he places on others. Annie is pretty and reserved, not confrontational, reticent to share her most conflicted concerns. First wife Frieda remains in the picture and is Graham’s closest confidante; she still has residual and unresolved pain. They have a son together, Lucas, now a successful man. Annie and Graham have a daughter, Sarah, who as an awkward teen turned to Frieda for maternal support. Moreover, Frieda and Annie gradually form a bond, progressing to best friends, which pleases Graham. But this isn’t a soapy story; Miller keeps it seasoned and sophisticated.Graham’s garrulous nature seduces others to concede to his way of shaping life, his narrative. But you can still pick through the individual memories that sway to perception. It’s the kind of story that, despite the title, is not a beach read or skin teaser. It’s adult, mature, and requires the inward patience you reserve for a sober, contemplative tale. Some readers may conclude that there is too much unnecessary detail, which I initially thought when Miller expanded on what may seem extraneous detail. However, these small, even trivial matters verify our own quotidian lives. I closed the book satisfied and also relieved to return to my own concerns. Excellent but with minimal levity, not a relief from this pandemic, but it is bittersweet and ultimately redemptive. 4.5 rounded upThank you to HarperCollins for sending me an ARC to read and review

I protagonisti di questa romanzo non sono le "persone" bensì l'amore, la vita di coppia, le bugie, i segreti e i tanti tradimenti. Un romanzo che narra l'amore tra Graham, un librario e Annie, una fotografa, sposati da quasi trent’anni con due figli ormai adulti: Sarah, figlia di entrambi e Lucas, il figlio che Graham ha avuto dalla sua prima moglie Frieda. Quest'ultima moglie che, nonostante sia stata lei a lasciarla e a scappare da casa, continua a pensarlo costantemente. Nella loro cerchia di amici e conoscenti, sono considerati una coppia d’oro. Ma in realtà anche loro hanno dei segreti nonostante l'amore che li lega. Mentre Annie è sempre stata fedele durante il loro matrimonio, Graham è no, è un uomo molto socievole con grandi appetiti: curioso, desideroso di compiacere, amante della vita e del cibo, conviviale organizzatore di feste vivaci. Graham l'ha tradita molte volte, e Annie lo scopre solo dopo la sua morte improvvisa. Sebbene Frieda sia una presenza costante nella loro vita, Annie è consapevole di essere il più grande amore del marito. Quando Graham muore, Annie è perduta, si sente sola e secondo lei non ha senso andare avanti senza di lui. Poi scopre dei segreti pungenti e inizia a pensare il marito defunto con altri occhi: occhi dell'invidia e del risentimento.Un libro super scorrevole, scritto con uno stile pazzesco e coinvolgente, Monogamia è un inno all'amore e ai problemi di coppia, problemi comuni in molte coppie, è una sorte di fotografia delle relazioni amorose di lunga data e dei segreti che spesso vi si nascondono. Un libro dai temi forti e potenti che mi ha coinvolto molto e mi è piaciuto molto, tra l'altro la copertina è un vero quadro... mi sono innamorata dei colori!

Unexpectedly good. By this I mean that I am normally not too keen on marital dramas, especially not if they are too romantic. To clarify: this has got nothing to do with what is normally perceived as romance, it is way too honest and wonderfully literary for that, I loved the references that I spotted and I am sure there are many more that I have missed, should have noted them down, have forgotten now, but Andrew Marvell springs to mind (My Coy Mistress, or was it actually To The Virgins to Make Much of Time?). I love intertextuality when I am able to detect it, makes me feel soooo clever. I also loved the hippie-vibe, the descriptions of dinners for all the friends with talking going on untill the early hours, the description of Graham's generosity and magnanimity and appetite for life and lust and all things pleasant. The author accomplishes to comprise the utmost happiness with the deepest sorrow too, and it all feels so recognizable and genuinely authentic. Maybe not for young people, I don't think I would have appreciated this as a 20-year old, but now when I am nearer the author in age, I really appreciate her honest writing and willingness to go where others fear to tread

Novels where the characters talk and think and just live will always be my favorite. Sometimes the mundane necessities of life are the easiest to feel connected to.

Sue Miller has always been one of my go-to writers. She hasn't written a book I didn't like. 'Monogamy' is no exception. The narrative and character development both shine. The story focuses on Annie and Graham, a couple married for over 30 years, a second marriage for both. Annie is a relatively introverted photographer and Graham is an exuberant and bigger than life personality, owner of a Cambridge, Massachusetts book store. He describes himself 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." And he does. Everyone seems to love Graham.The novel revels in family and the unique aspects of how to create family and intimacies. 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. It is as if he serves as their north star.When Graham dies, about 100 pages into the novel, Annie free falls, especially once she 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. What seemed very apparent and transparent to me was that Graham was narcissistic, a trait that Annie and his menage don't seem to mind or are in denial about. An example is when Annie is due to have a one person photography show, her first in five years, Graham forgets all about it. Most everything is about him and his enormous needs. His needs are like a bottomless pit and the more he gets, the more he wants. Graham and Annie hobnob with artists, writers, and the intellectually elite. Owning the bookstore helps but so do the grand dinner parties that Annie and Graham host.Once Graham dies and the family communes in Cambridge, their dynamics become more clarified. Annie has been described as cold by some but I found her guarded and self-protective rather than cold. It is difficult for her to reach out, even to those she loves. Sarah is very tentative about intimacy and resists sharing her budding relationship with her mother. Frieda, while loved and cherished by all, is not part of the nucleus as observed when she is not invited to scatter Graham's ashes. Lucas is about to become a father and he is juggling his wife's needs with Frieda's and Annie's.And then there is 'monogamy'. Frieda talks about her marriage with Graham and what the 1970's were like for them. If you have lived through the seventies, you will know about the prevalence of open marriages, the disparagement of jealous feelings and the opposition to monogamy. This was all too much for Frieda and Graham's relishing of lovers caused her to leave him.Annie, naive perhaps, believes that she is Graham's only one. She is shaken to the core when she realizes she is not and that he has strayed. She isn't even aware of how many times this has happened though he has confided in Frieda.It all makes for a fascinating family novel, one written by a fine observer of the mores and behaviors of a certain type of artistic and literary couple. What is celebrated in this novel, beyond the narrative and characters, is Graham's "honest embrace of pleasure. Pleasure was who Graham was. It was his gift." On the other hand, he needs this to coalesce with his other side, the "fat, sad, needy man" who "needs so much stuff from life." Ms. Miller paints a masterful portrait of this man and the surrendering of his wife to his needs.