While I Was Gone (Sue Miller)

While I Was Gone was apparently an Oprah Book Club selection. When I see that tradmark insignia, the book usually grows a ten-foot pole to keep me away. However, this book was being sold at a library fund raiser to the tune of a whole, whopping $0.75 and so I said okay. I would give it a try. Do I regret it? No. Do I relish it? Also no.

This is the story of a woman who thought she had everything she wanted--or was supposed to want--a husband in medical school, a entry-level teaching job--when the 1960s caught up with her. She found herself a waitress, leaving her husband, fleeing the city and rooming in a communal house in Boston. So, I love that part of the story. I too graduated college and felt a thrill at "slumming" (author's words, not mine) as a waitress or in other non-career-oriented professions. A way of finding yourself and exploring the world outside of the supposed to's.

My liking tapered off from there. After that point, it is the reflections of a grown-up narrator, now a vetrinarian and married to a minister, of her commune friend's death and the old friend she runs into that sheds new truth upon the old (but not quite healed) issue. A mystery, a thriller evolves from there. Okay, it was interesting and it turned the pages. What I turned the pages towards (meaning the ending) left something to be desired. If you are going to be a thriller, have a thrilling ending. If you plan on being a drama, lose the thriller tone and plotline.

Overall rating: a vacation read at best, a book club selection at worst. Bookshelf worthy? No, I think this bargain book will return to the library from whence it came to be sold again for another $0.75. After all, our struggling libraries have to pay the bills.