TUESDAY EXCERPTS: “MONOGAMY”

On By Laurel-Rain SnowIn Tuesday Excerpts

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events: First Chapter/Intros, now hosted by  Socrates Book Reviews; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by The Purple Booker.

Today’s feature is a recent download:  Monogamy, by Sue Miller.

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Intro:  Annie had been single for seven years when she met Graham.  Whenever she thought about her first marriage, even long after it had ended, her primary emotion was a kind of shame. Shame that she could have been attracted to someone she felt so little for in the end.  That she could have lived with him for so long.

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Teaser:  Graham offered his theory:  the problem was that they both felt their mothers should have been better at being women.  At being wives.  “They should have held on to our fathers for us,” he said.  “It was all their fault.” (p. 57).

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Synopsis:  Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years. A golden couple, their seemingly effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of friends and acquaintances.

Graham is a bookseller, a big, gregarious man with large appetites—curious, eager to please, a lover of life, and the convivial host of frequent, lively parties at his and Annie’s comfortable house in Cambridge. Annie, more reserved and introspective, is a photographer. She is about to have her first gallery show after a six-year lull and is worried that the best years of her career may be behind her. They have two adult children; Lucas, Graham’s son with his first wife, Frieda, works in New York. Annie and Graham’s daughter, Sarah, lives in San Francisco. Though Frieda is an integral part of this far-flung, loving family, Annie feels confident in the knowledge that she is Graham’s last and greatest love.

When Graham suddenly dies—this man whose enormous presence has seemed to dominate their lives together—Annie is lost. What is the point of going on, she wonders, without him?

Then, while she is still mourning him intensely, she discovers that Graham had been unfaithful to her; and she spirals into darkness, wondering if she ever truly knew the man who loved her.

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I am eager to read more of this one.  What do you think?

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10 thoughts on “TUESDAY EXCERPTS: “MONOGAMY””

  3. Hi Lorraine,

    The intro and the teaser extract both had me hooked and already decided that this was one for my list – and then I read the premise!

    That kind of let things down for me, as I felt that the last couple, definitely the very last, paragraph, gave away unnecessary spoilers and ruined the anticipation!

    I do expect a premise to give me a good overview of a story, but this one went overboard a bit too much. I shall still add it to my list, but not too near the top!

    Thanks for sharing and I hope that you enjoy the read 🙂

    Yvonne xx

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