The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller
Sue Miller has a lovely writing style and I always enjoy her books. I found this one a bit weird, however. The ending is a huge shock and really blows everything apart, as it’s meant to, but, on the other hand, it was a bit difficult to connect it with the rest of the story. This finely wrought tale, set in the seventies, concerns two marriages — those of Meri and Nathan and Senator Tom Naughton and his wife Delia. Nathan, young and ambitious, is starry-eyed when he and Meri move next door to the much older Senator, only to discover that Delia lives alone. Meri, prickly and resentful about her past life and her sacrificing her career for Nathan, makes friends with Delia, finding in her a mentor. Delia, friendly and magnanimous, is much more likeable than Meri. They meet the Senator eventually, discovering that he is just as charming as his wife. When Delia leaves her in charge of the house while she’s in Paris, Meri, bored and frustrated, starts going through her things, discoveri...
