Catherine Hubbard is at a crossroads in her life. Twice divorced, she has three children who are now grown up and scattered. Then news comes that she has inherited her grandmother Georgia's home in Vermont. There, Catherine finds not only the ghosts of her own past but those of Georgia as well, whose diaries reveal a deep secret and a tragic misunderstanding.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Amazon Review
In Sue Miller's graceful novel, The World Below, Cath Hubbard, a San Francisco woman in her fifties, returns to her grandmother's small Vermont house after the death of an aunt who left the property to Cath and her brother Laurence. Cath had lived with her grandparents for a few years in her teens, after her mother's suicide, and now makes her wounded way back, in the wake of a divorce, to sort through her memories of her beloved grandmother, Georgia. This is the standard fare of American literary fiction: a life-change prompting a search into the past. What is far less ordinary is Miller's placid, nuanced depiction of her protagonist's emotional journey.
None of Cath's feelings can be easily predicted by the reader, but all of them ring true. She finds her grandmother's diary and begins to fill in the stories that Georgia had hinted at over the years. What Cath discovers in her grandmother's journal is a secret that has lost its power to shock; and that very wearing-away of taboo adds to the poignancy of Georgia's restricted life. Her story unfolds against a backdrop of Cath's more immediate griefs and concerns, and begins to recede as Cath's San Francisco life returns to claim her. Miller's prose appears effortless, but is like the gestures of a magician, that conceal how the trick is accomplished. The result is a sage, continually surprising novel about finding peace-of-mind in a combination of habit, love and self-determination. --Regina Marler, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Sue Miller brings unusual skill in the exploration of women's hopes and regrets' Sunday Telegraph 'A beautiful, wistful meditation on the concept of home' Elle 'Miller writes with tremendous subtlety and perception' Daily Mail 'Miller skilfully weaves the story of Georgia's illicit youthful affair into Catherine's memories of her own past and contemplation of the future. Masterful storytelling' Good Housekeeping
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
From the synopsis of the book though, the reader may expect the whole book to dedicated to Georgia's story.
One must expect to read a story of Cath's thoughts: who she has been, her divorces, her children, her search for her own future -where does she feel to belong in the future; as well as her search for the essence of her grandmother, her and John's couple, what was behind the façade...
A word one of the reviews on the back cover uses: domestic. Yes, Sue Miller captures perfectly those 'domestic' emotions through clear sentences that flow like water.
She makes us go deep in Georgia's story, feelings and resentments that lay at the heart of her couple with John; then the reader resurfaces to the present.
One truly visualizes a life we could never imagine -the sanatorium, the perception of an independent woman in those days-.
I found it a profound book in that many sentences made me reflect on what it meant -or means indeed- to be a couple, how one copes with secrets, misunderstandings, deceit
Ultimately, it is all about loving.
One must expect to read a story of Cath's thoughts: who she has been, her divorces, her children, her search for her own future -where does she feel to belong in the future; as well as her search for the essence of her grandmother, her and John's couple, what was behind the façade...
A word one of the reviews on the back cover uses: domestic. Yes, Sue Miller captures perfectly those 'domestic' emotions through clear sentences that flow like water.
She makes us go deep in Georgia's story, feelings and resentments that lay at the heart of her couple with John; then the reader resurfaces to the present.
One truly visualizes a life we could never imagine -the sanatorium, the perception of an independent woman in those days-.
I found it a profound book in that many sentences made me reflect on what it meant -or means indeed- to be a couple, how one copes with secrets, misunderstandings, deceit
Ultimately, it is all about loving.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Kate Hopkins
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
'The World Below' is a pensive novel looking at the lives of two women: Catherine Hubbard, a middle-aged twice-divorced teacher from San Francisco, and her grandmother Georgia. In the 'present-day' sections of the story, Catherine, melancholy after her second divorce, takes a sabbatical and moves to her grandmother's house in Vermont, where she lived with her grandparents as a teenager, to think through her life. While in Vermont, she begins a close friendship with Samuel, a retired, book-loving teacher, and discovers her grandmother's journal, leading her to reassess her assumptions about her grandparents' marriage and what her grandmother was really like. In the 'past' sections of the story, told in the third person in comparison to Catherine's first-person narrative, we learn about Catherine's grandmother Georgia as a young woman living in Maine after World War I: how she cared for her brother, sister and father after the death of her mother from tuberculosis; how she developed tuberculosis herself and was sent to a sanatorium by her doctor, John Holbrooke, how while there she fell in love with Seward Wallace, a musically-gifted and very sick patient and how, after she left the sanatorium cured, and Seward, still sick, went out to Colorado to consult other doctors, she had to make the heartbreaking decision to follow him, knowing that he was likely to die, or to stay in Maine and marry John, who has loved her for a long time. And this is not all, for Georgia has a secret about her relationship with Seward, which she knows she must tell John if they are to be happy...... Read more ›
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By "magslee3"
Format:Paperback
A thought provoking novel full of insights into the connections between generations. Miller's powerful prose made me reflect and examine my own childhood and the way that actions and conversations have a new light cast on them as we get older.Milller conveys observations of family love in a subtle way.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The small, personal, domestic dramas in the lives of women, which Miller portrays in this soul-baring, confessional narrative, will make this book appealing for many readers--chiefly women, I suspect--who will see themselves or events from their own lives in the emotional challenges faced by Catherine Hubbard and her grandmother, Georgia Rice. But those who are hoping for a book which rises above the here and now and into the realm of universal themes and truths may be less enchanted.
Catherine is a twice divorced mother of three from California who inherits and moves temporarily into the Vermont cottage in which she lived with her grandparents during her teen years. Long interested in her grandparents' seemingly successful marriage, which contrasts sharply with her own marriages, Catherine embarks on some serious soul-searching as she tries to decide whether to stay permanently in Vermont and begin a new life. While she is there, she discovers her grandmother's diaries and learns that her grandmother, too, faced personal crises and challenges.
The let-it-all-hang-out confessions of the minutiae of Catherine's and Georgia's emotional lives seem, somehow, intrusive to me, too personal--not because they are so revelatory or shocking but because they are so mundane, so self-conscious. The reader is hard pressed to find many universal truths which can illuminate aspects of our own lives in these revelations, and I ended up learning more about the daily emotional lives of these women than I really wanted to know. Additionally, Georgia's diaries did not ring true to me.
... Read more ›0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The beginning of this book is confusing, swapping between six generations. However, this improves when it simplifies into two main characters: Georgia, the grandmother, and Cath, her grandaughter.
There's nothing very original about the plot; grandaughter searches through her grandmother's diaries and fills in gaps in what she'd already known, but the book is redeemed by the insights into life in a TB sanitorium in America after the second world war.
We feel the complete isolation from the real world and the sense that life must be lived to the full in case it is whipped away suddenly. To be one of the lucky ones who return to 'normal' life, brings its readjustments too.
Judging from the ratings, this is possibly Sue Miller's least popular book, hopefully others will be more gripping.
There's nothing very original about the plot; grandaughter searches through her grandmother's diaries and fills in gaps in what she'd already known, but the book is redeemed by the insights into life in a TB sanitorium in America after the second world war.
We feel the complete isolation from the real world and the sense that life must be lived to the full in case it is whipped away suddenly. To be one of the lucky ones who return to 'normal' life, brings its readjustments too.
Judging from the ratings, this is possibly Sue Miller's least popular book, hopefully others will be more gripping.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 54 reviews
3.6 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
