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The World Below
The World Below
Author: Sue Miller
From the author of While I Was Gone, a stunning new novel that showcases Sue Miller's singular gift for exposing the nerves that lie hidden in marriages and families, and the hopes and regrets that lie buried in the hearts of women. — Maine, 1919. Georgia Rice, who has cared for her father and two siblings since her mother's death, is dia...  more »
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ISBN-13: 9780375410949
ISBN-10: 0375410945
Publication Date: 10/2/2001
Pages: 288
Rating:
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 45

3.5 stars, based on 45 ratings
Publisher: Knopf
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

recyclist1954 avatar reviewed The World Below on + 33 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
Looking at old photographs of family, I have often wondered what their lives were like and what they were thinking when the photo was taken. Sue Miller explores that idea and the concept that below a surface of daily life our parents, grandparents, etc., had challenges, wants, needs, desires, secrets, conflicts that we never saw and never knew about. Sometimes because we don't see them as real people, with lives and pasts, we don't walk through the doors into their lives that they open. Sometimes we just have to reach a certain maturity before we are ready to accept that they may have wanted something else out of life than what they were given, or may have had a colorful, interesting or even sad past. Miller's book explores all of this and more as her main character tries to reconcile her past, present and fashion a future while learning more about a grandmother she deeply loved but never truly understood while the woman was alive. This is not a book of rapids and waterfalls, but a ride down the river of time, where we never quite know what will appear around the next bend, or what lies under the surface, in the world below.
reviewed The World Below on
Helpful Score: 3
Miller gets into the internal mindset of the two women in this story in a unique way. Catherine (a twice married woman in her 50's with grown children) returns to her grandmother's (Georgia) home and finds her diary. We learn about Georgia through her diary entries and I am thankful for Miller's gift of weaving the alternating storylines into my own heart. Georgia, who was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a teen, is the character I am most interested in. Her life-altering experience in the "san" often left me wishing I would've asked my own grandmother more questions about her older sister who was diagnosed with TB in the 1940s and "was sent away to the san" too. I greedily found myself researching the two sanitariums in my own state of Michigan (Battle Creek and Traverse City had sanitariums in the 1880s) and tried to imagine what life was was like for my great-aunt who went to the Battle Creek sanitarium. I know my own grandmother took her sister's child and raised him for the three years she was in the san. My grandmother talked about her sister's absence with great sadness. She didn't reveal too much (it seems many people from her generation who suffered greatly didn't talk about it but "got on with their lives.") Georgia endured, sacrificed but always remembered. The rich, emotional depth of "The World Below" caused me to shed tears for everyone sentenced to time at a santitarium -- then and now.
ilovedale3 avatar reviewed The World Below on + 524 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I like the way that the author blended the stories of Catherine and her grandmother Georgia. The story is nicely written and really delves into the feeling of emotional helplessness that the characters are feeling. A good book, will not disappoint.
reviewed The World Below on + 116 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I'm a fan of Sue Miller but did not like this book as much as some of her others (While I Was Gone, Family Pictures, The Senators' Wife). The New England setting was very vivid but overall the story was too slow and meandering for me.
reviewed The World Below on
Helpful Score: 1
I actually tried to read this book twice, and could not get into it. It doesn't mean its a bad book, just not for me.
Read All 29 Book Reviews of "The World Below"

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reviewed The World Below on + 5 more book reviews
This was an average read ~ I enjoyed the setting of the novel.
reviewed The World Below on + 145 more book reviews
I usually enjoy Sue Miller's books and this one is no exception.
reviewed The World Below on
This book is written about two women, a grandmother and her granddaughter, and how the past influences the actions of the younger generation. The grandmother's story is explained in the last few pages and was quite a surprise to me, as I did not see it during the reading of the book.
reviewed The World Below on + 12 more book reviews
Miller probes marriage and family with characteristic insight and poignancy.
reviewed The World Below on
Another of Sue Miller,s studies of life and it,s meaning that sometimes is not obvious to those looking at family relationships. Fastinating.
reviewed The World Below on + 404 more book reviews
"It's the kind of book that is so subtly involved that it didn't seem like much was happening, but...the ideas were profound. Every detail means something. Very unique and believable characters. Definitely worth the read, especially for Sue Miller fans." amazon review
reviewed The World Below on + 6 more book reviews
I liked the book. It was interesting in that it covered the live of her grandmother as well as some of her own. In reviewing her grandmother's live through her just found diaries she was able to see how different events effected her grandmother and draw some knowledge from those events to her own live. It was very interesting although a bit choppy. A good read!
reviewed The World Below on + 155 more book reviews
Going from 1919 to the present, this book delves into families and the secrets that are revealed from generation to generation. From grandmother to granddaughter. A really good book
reviewed The World Below on + 104 more book reviews
Beautiful book, well written....I hated for it to end.
reviewed The World Below on + 9 more book reviews
I enjoyed this book and was an easy read.


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