One minute John is the cornerstone of Eva's world, rock to his two teenage stepdaughters and his own son Theo, the next he is tossed through the air in a traffic accident, and snapped like a twig. His sudden death changes everything. Eva struggles with the terror and desolation of loneliness, and finds herself drawn back to her untrustworthy ex-husband; Emily, the eldest daughter, grapples with her new-found independence and responsibility. Little Theo can only begin to fathom the permanence of his father's death. But for Daisy, John's absence opens up a whole world of confusion just at the onset of adolescence and blossoming sexuality. And in steps a man only too willing to take advantage.
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Review
‘Lost in the Forest is a shining affirmation that her power only continues to grow’ -- Washington Post
‘Miller’s latest novel secures her place in the company of writers like Anne Tyler and Alison Lurie’ -- Daily Mail
‘Sue Miller brings unusual skill in the exploration of women’s hopes and regrets’ -- Sunday Telegraph
‘Wonderful - rich, intelligent and moving ... this is the fiction we need’ -- LA Times
‘Miller’s latest novel secures her place in the company of writers like Anne Tyler and Alison Lurie’ -- Daily Mail
‘Sue Miller brings unusual skill in the exploration of women’s hopes and regrets’ -- Sunday Telegraph
‘Wonderful - rich, intelligent and moving ... this is the fiction we need’ -- LA Times
From the Publisher
Sue Miller’s finest novel yet is a poignant masterpiece about the deepest, truest things about family life – of death and love, growing up and growing older.
Longlisted for the Orange Prize 2006
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a novel about loss and family. Unfortunately it comes across as rather sterile. I've read some of her other books which i thought were much better than this. The characters seem to have no inner life. There is no real emotion in the book although it is about loss; the loss of a father and partner to a road accident, the loss of a wife by the husband's infidelity, the loss of innocence in the seduction of a young girl by a much older man. It takes some doing to write about that lot and not show much emotion.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars
61 reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Warped, Compelling Coming Of Age Tale
20 Aug 2005
By Ellie Reasoner
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
First, this confession: it was the beautiful cover of this book that first caught my eye. If ever a book was served by what lies on its cover, it is this one.
Set in the California wine country in the late 1980's, this Sue Miller novel begins in straightforward fashion with the accidental death of a man, then lets the effects of that death cascade downward to set the entire story in motion. This novel tells of fifteen-year-old Daisy and her extended family, and how the life of Daisy and her relatives is changed with the loss of Daisy's stepfather. Ill-healed wounds from the recent past are split open once more amid a plethora of present-day anguish. Daisy and all around her are, to state it simply, changed.
If Lost In The Forest were merely this, it would be an entirely different type of novel, but as most everyone now knows, Miller turns it into something more. What she accomplishes via Daisy's eventual erotic affair with a man nearly forty years her elder, is to explicitly turn out the most daring, taboo-breaking work of fiction since Lolita half a century ago. I avidly followed along behind Daisy in her descent into what is probably best described, even in 2005, as a plummet from grace.
I really feel uncomfortable saying more than this, because there is much lying under the surface of this work and I am afraid of giving details away when you can gain so much more by discovering this story for yourself. What I will conclude with here is that Miller, in this tale of pain and reaction, coming of age, and the making of mistakes, has given us her best work since Family Pictures, and showed not only courage in the story she created, but in making this barely more than a novella, when so many other writers might have yielded to the temptation to bloat this by an unnecessary couple hundred extra pages.
Set in the California wine country in the late 1980's, this Sue Miller novel begins in straightforward fashion with the accidental death of a man, then lets the effects of that death cascade downward to set the entire story in motion. This novel tells of fifteen-year-old Daisy and her extended family, and how the life of Daisy and her relatives is changed with the loss of Daisy's stepfather. Ill-healed wounds from the recent past are split open once more amid a plethora of present-day anguish. Daisy and all around her are, to state it simply, changed.
If Lost In The Forest were merely this, it would be an entirely different type of novel, but as most everyone now knows, Miller turns it into something more. What she accomplishes via Daisy's eventual erotic affair with a man nearly forty years her elder, is to explicitly turn out the most daring, taboo-breaking work of fiction since Lolita half a century ago. I avidly followed along behind Daisy in her descent into what is probably best described, even in 2005, as a plummet from grace.
I really feel uncomfortable saying more than this, because there is much lying under the surface of this work and I am afraid of giving details away when you can gain so much more by discovering this story for yourself. What I will conclude with here is that Miller, in this tale of pain and reaction, coming of age, and the making of mistakes, has given us her best work since Family Pictures, and showed not only courage in the story she created, but in making this barely more than a novella, when so many other writers might have yielded to the temptation to bloat this by an unnecessary couple hundred extra pages.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing
16 Aug 2005
By Marron
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
SPOILER ALERT!!
This book was well written, as all Sue Miller's books are. It had interesting (but not terrbly appealing) characters, and great, realistic dialogue, but it contained highly disturbing and erotically written sex scenes between a lonely, hard edged teenaged girl and a completely narcissistic, sleazy older man that left me quite queasy. To me this was sexual abuse, but it was never defined that way. All in all the book left me with an empty feeling, despite the girl's father more or less stepping up to the protective plate.
This book was well written, as all Sue Miller's books are. It had interesting (but not terrbly appealing) characters, and great, realistic dialogue, but it contained highly disturbing and erotically written sex scenes between a lonely, hard edged teenaged girl and a completely narcissistic, sleazy older man that left me quite queasy. To me this was sexual abuse, but it was never defined that way. All in all the book left me with an empty feeling, despite the girl's father more or less stepping up to the protective plate.
42 of 51 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended with reservations..
30 April 2005
By sb-lynn
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
IMHO, this is one of Miller's better books. The characters are all ring true, and the tale is told in an interesting way.
Summary, no spoilers:
Eva and Mark had two children, named Emily and Daisy. When the girls were small, Mark has an affair, and the marriage ends.
Eva remarries John ("a nice guy"), and has a son, Theo, with him.
When the book opens, we discover that John has been killed in a car accident (he was a pedestrian), and everyone is feeling enormous grief.
The book tells the story of that grief, and how each character deals with life without John.
Mark now becomes a more vital part of the family's life, Eva deals with loneliness, and Daisy, 14 years old and the most troubled, deals with her grief, her alienation from other kids, and her burgeoning sexuality.
This is a quick read. As usual, Miller is entertaining, and in particular, in this novel she has created a realistic group of characters.
The only reservation I have is with the ending of this book. Miller's last chapter takes place well after the events of the book, and it does resolve a lot of questions as to what happens to the various characters. It is just my opinion, but I would have preferred a different ending. It was a bit of a letdown for me, and I felt like I was meeting different characters than the ones I had come to know intimately throughout the novel.
Despite this, Lost in the Forest is a very good book, and I highly recommended it.
Summary, no spoilers:
Eva and Mark had two children, named Emily and Daisy. When the girls were small, Mark has an affair, and the marriage ends.
Eva remarries John ("a nice guy"), and has a son, Theo, with him.
When the book opens, we discover that John has been killed in a car accident (he was a pedestrian), and everyone is feeling enormous grief.
The book tells the story of that grief, and how each character deals with life without John.
Mark now becomes a more vital part of the family's life, Eva deals with loneliness, and Daisy, 14 years old and the most troubled, deals with her grief, her alienation from other kids, and her burgeoning sexuality.
This is a quick read. As usual, Miller is entertaining, and in particular, in this novel she has created a realistic group of characters.
The only reservation I have is with the ending of this book. Miller's last chapter takes place well after the events of the book, and it does resolve a lot of questions as to what happens to the various characters. It is just my opinion, but I would have preferred a different ending. It was a bit of a letdown for me, and I felt like I was meeting different characters than the ones I had come to know intimately throughout the novel.
Despite this, Lost in the Forest is a very good book, and I highly recommended it.
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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