Sue Miller

Maybe some people just like to keep things private. Secret, I guess you'd say. Love came late to Meri, but in a rush: she met Nathan at thirty-six, he moved in a month later, and they married a month after that. Now they are moving to New England and a house of their own - a new life that Meri is not sure she even wants. She loves her husband, but feels there may be trouble ahead. Nathan, however, is boyishly excited that their next-door neighbour is the eminent Senator Tom Naughton, a political hero of his, now in his seventies. The Senator is nowhere to be seen, but Meri strikes up an unexpected friendship with his wife, the elegant Delia, sensing that she has much to learn from her - about marriage, love and motherhood. But soon she comes close to a terrible breach of trust that could ruin everything.

One of the most emotionally truthful novels I have ever read' DAISY BUCHANAN 'Almost every line glows with even-handed wisdom - a superb novel, beautifully put together' DAILY MAIL 'An invaluably moving book' JULIET NICOLSON 'One to read first for the story and then to re-read at leisure and marvel at how real these people feel' ERIN KELLY 'Penetrating, intelligent, humane, funny too ... Smart and powerfully alive' TESSA HADLEY Annie is not the first love of Graham's life but she is, he thinks, his last and greatest. Very recently, he has faltered; but he means to put it right. Here they are in marriage, in late middle age, in comfort. Mismatched, and yet so well matched: the bookseller with his appetite, his conviviality, his bigness; the photographer with her delicacy, her astuteness, her reserve. The children are offstage, grown up and scattered on either coast; Graham's first wife, Frieda, is peaceably in their lives, but not between them. Then the unthinkable happens. Now Annie stumbles in the dark: did she know all there was to know about the man who loved her? If no marriage is without its small indiscretions, how great does a betrayal have to be to be to break it? A novel about marriage, family, secrets and love, Monogamy confirms Sue Miller's place among the greatest writers at work in America today.

Annie is the great love of Graham's life. Here they are in late middle-age, the photographer and the bookseller, so mismatched and yet so well-matched. Theirs is a happy marriage of nearly thirty years - and even the happiest of marriages, Graham tells himself, have their secrets. Then the unthinkable happens, and suddenly Annie is alone, stumbling in the dark. How much can we ever know the people who love us? 'With what exquisite truth Sue Miller writes ... I was completely wrapped up in the beautifully, and often so tenderly observed rollercoaster of grief. An invaluably moving book' Juliet Nicolson