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The World Below
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 diagnosed, at nineteen, with tuberculosis and sent away to a sanitarium. Freed from the burdens of caretaking, she discovers a nearly lost world of youth and possibility, and meets the doomed young man who will become her lover.
Vermont, the present. On the heels of a divorce, Catherine Hubbard, Georgia's granddaughter, takes up residence in Georgia's old house. Sorting through her own affairs, Cath stumbles upon the true story of Georgia's life and marriage, and of the misunderstanding upon which she built a lasting love.
With the tales of these two women--one a country doctor's wife with a haunting past, the other a twice-divorced San Francisco schoolteacher casting about at midlife for answers to her future--Miller offers us a novel of astonishing richness and emotional depth. Linked by bitter disappointments, compromise, and powerful grace, the lives of Georgia and Cath begin to seem remarkably similar, despite their distinctly different times: two young girls, generations apart, motherless at nearly the same age, thrust into early adulthood, struggling with confusing bonds of attachment and guilt; both of them in marriages that are not what they seem, forced to make choices that call into question the very nature of intimacy, faithfulness, betrayal, and love. Marvelously written, expertly told, The World Below captures the shadowy half-truths of the visible world, and the beauty and sorrow submerged beneath the surfaces of our lives--the lost world of the past, our lost hopes for the future. A tour de force from one of our most beloved storytellers.
From the Hardcover edition.
Maine, 1919. Georgia Rice, who has cared for her father and two siblings since her mother's death, is diagnosed, at nineteen, with tuberculosis and sent away to a sanitarium. Freed from the burdens of caretaking, she discovers a nearly lost world of youth and possibility, and meets the doomed young man who will become her lover.
Vermont, the present. On the heels of a divorce, Catherine Hubbard, Georgia's granddaughter, takes up residence in Georgia's old house. Sorting through her own affairs, Cath stumbles upon the true story of Georgia's life and marriage, and of the misunderstanding upon which she built a lasting love.
With the tales of these two women--one a country doctor's wife with a haunting past, the other a twice-divorced San Francisco schoolteacher casting about at midlife for answers to her future--Miller offers us a novel of astonishing richness and emotional depth. Linked by bitter disappointments, compromise, and powerful grace, the lives of Georgia and Cath begin to seem remarkably similar, despite their distinctly different times: two young girls, generations apart, motherless at nearly the same age, thrust into early adulthood, struggling with confusing bonds of attachment and guilt; both of them in marriages that are not what they seem, forced to make choices that call into question the very nature of intimacy, faithfulness, betrayal, and love. Marvelously written, expertly told, The World Below captures the shadowy half-truths of the visible world, and the beauty and sorrow submerged beneath the surfaces of our lives--the lost world of the past, our lost hopes for the future. A tour de force from one of our most beloved storytellers.
From the Hardcover edition.
275 pages, Paperback
First published October 2, 2001
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About the author
Sue Miller
57 books934 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Sue Miller is an American novelist and short story writer who has written a number of best-selling novels. She graduated from Radcliffe College.
Sue Miller is an American novelist and short story writer who has written a number of best-selling novels. She graduated from Radcliffe College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 453 reviews
May 22, 2017
Grandparents
Sue Miller's 2001 novel begins with a chapter that is stunningly beautiful in its simplicity. An old lady drives with her husband in a horse and buggy to visit her recently-widowed son in law with the offer to take her young granddaughters off his hands, so they could grow up in a real home. The son-in-law politely refuses, the girls even laugh behind her back, but none of this matters because the chapter is so full of human truth that it shines in its own beauty.
I thought it merely a prelude—and so it is; that particular grandmother never reappears in the story. But I soon came to realize that Miller's entire novel is constructed on a scaffold of grandmother-granddaughter relationships. Georgia, the elder of the girls who refuse to be rescued in the prelude, is revealed as the grandmother of the contemporary narrator, Cath, who by the end of the book has a granddaughter of her own. Seven generations in all, a regular family saga, except that the novel is not told linearly and the intervening generations play little part in the story. The main emphasis is on the parallel lives of Cath (surely the author's alter ego) and her grandmother Georgia.
Parallel, but different in so many ways. Georgia lived a long and largely uneventful married life in a small Vermont town. Cath, twice divorced, returns from San Francisco to take possession of her grandparents' old house and decide whether to move in or sell it. Much has changed, but she comes upon old diaries and of course she has her own memories. The downside of the book is that not much happens, and even the long-buried secrets do not seem all that shocking. The upside of the book is that not much happens, but that fact alone brings it closer to everyday truth. The secrets do not need to be shocking; all they have to do is to have us leap the generations and see these older men and women as people like ourselves. And in this, the author succeeds with quiet assurance. At times, this even reads like a memoir; whether biographical or not, one feels that Sue Miller must have had remarkable grandparents herself to call forth such an act of love.
The title, incidentally, will not be explained until close to the very end. It will emerge as a beautifully evocative image of how the lives of one generation lie quietly below the lives of these that follow, hidden unless one cares to look, the past a silent partner to the future.
Sue Miller's 2001 novel begins with a chapter that is stunningly beautiful in its simplicity. An old lady drives with her husband in a horse and buggy to visit her recently-widowed son in law with the offer to take her young granddaughters off his hands, so they could grow up in a real home. The son-in-law politely refuses, the girls even laugh behind her back, but none of this matters because the chapter is so full of human truth that it shines in its own beauty.
I thought it merely a prelude—and so it is; that particular grandmother never reappears in the story. But I soon came to realize that Miller's entire novel is constructed on a scaffold of grandmother-granddaughter relationships. Georgia, the elder of the girls who refuse to be rescued in the prelude, is revealed as the grandmother of the contemporary narrator, Cath, who by the end of the book has a granddaughter of her own. Seven generations in all, a regular family saga, except that the novel is not told linearly and the intervening generations play little part in the story. The main emphasis is on the parallel lives of Cath (surely the author's alter ego) and her grandmother Georgia.
Parallel, but different in so many ways. Georgia lived a long and largely uneventful married life in a small Vermont town. Cath, twice divorced, returns from San Francisco to take possession of her grandparents' old house and decide whether to move in or sell it. Much has changed, but she comes upon old diaries and of course she has her own memories. The downside of the book is that not much happens, and even the long-buried secrets do not seem all that shocking. The upside of the book is that not much happens, but that fact alone brings it closer to everyday truth. The secrets do not need to be shocking; all they have to do is to have us leap the generations and see these older men and women as people like ourselves. And in this, the author succeeds with quiet assurance. At times, this even reads like a memoir; whether biographical or not, one feels that Sue Miller must have had remarkable grandparents herself to call forth such an act of love.
The title, incidentally, will not be explained until close to the very end. It will emerge as a beautifully evocative image of how the lives of one generation lie quietly below the lives of these that follow, hidden unless one cares to look, the past a silent partner to the future.
August 28, 2022
Sue Miller's characters read; this makes them far more interesting, more complex than most American characters. In this novel, the central character reads letters of her great-grandmother who had been institutionalized at nineteen. This led to a lifetime, a marriage, of unsuspected depths and doubts.
Such reading characters should also interest Goodreads afficianados. In the World Below, the life of the TB asylum is exposed, in a sense. All that time, nothing to do: of course relationships developed, sex happened. The main alternatives to sex may have been meals and reading. Asylum meals never made five-star ratings, so that left sex and reading.
For nearly forty years I taught at a small college where my Division Chair had been diagnosed with TB in the fifties. He claimed it was sheer chance that he went not to a surgeon, but to an internist. He felt a surgeon might well have killed him. The internist sent him to an asylum--where he read three to five books a week for over a year. One would be hard pressed to achieve such a literary education at a four year college. Was TB God's gift to literature?
Perhaps I should not add, my paternal relatives populated the town below the lake, below Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts. As a child I fished on Quabbin, and in many sections of the northern part where fishing was allowed you could see stone walls running under the lake, fifteen feet down, to where the depth obscured them.
I invited Sue Miller to read at my Bristol Community College, which she did, in October, 2006, in our largest room, filled with a hundred students and colleagues. In a black jacket and with hair curly, she could not stay for lunch because she took her god-daughter out to lunch. A wonderful reading, from this book, the longest passage some twenty minutes. She engaged my students, many returning women and mothers in their twenties. She answered questions articulately; for example, she has a small diary, 6" by 2.5", of her grandmother's, mostly banal, but: "I would like to lie in the earth. Today I seemed doomed to disappointment."
Such reading characters should also interest Goodreads afficianados. In the World Below, the life of the TB asylum is exposed, in a sense. All that time, nothing to do: of course relationships developed, sex happened. The main alternatives to sex may have been meals and reading. Asylum meals never made five-star ratings, so that left sex and reading.
For nearly forty years I taught at a small college where my Division Chair had been diagnosed with TB in the fifties. He claimed it was sheer chance that he went not to a surgeon, but to an internist. He felt a surgeon might well have killed him. The internist sent him to an asylum--where he read three to five books a week for over a year. One would be hard pressed to achieve such a literary education at a four year college. Was TB God's gift to literature?
Perhaps I should not add, my paternal relatives populated the town below the lake, below Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts. As a child I fished on Quabbin, and in many sections of the northern part where fishing was allowed you could see stone walls running under the lake, fifteen feet down, to where the depth obscured them.
I invited Sue Miller to read at my Bristol Community College, which she did, in October, 2006, in our largest room, filled with a hundred students and colleagues. In a black jacket and with hair curly, she could not stay for lunch because she took her god-daughter out to lunch. A wonderful reading, from this book, the longest passage some twenty minutes. She engaged my students, many returning women and mothers in their twenties. She answered questions articulately; for example, she has a small diary, 6" by 2.5", of her grandmother's, mostly banal, but: "I would like to lie in the earth. Today I seemed doomed to disappointment."
January 4, 2018
Some would classify Miller's book as "Summer Reading", but since I do not follow that trend, I would state that although in some respects it could be considered light, I enjoyed the ebb and flow of her writing. It soon becomes clear that the author has tapped thoughtful, reflective depths. Simply stated, it is about woman, who following two failed marriages and other life changes, goes to live in her grandmother's home in rural Vermont. While trying to find new directions for her own existence, she comes upon her grandmother's faithfully penned diaries. At this point, the narrative traverses the years of the older woman's youth and alternates with similar periods of her granddaughter's development. Miller was able to establish an interesting tension with this device.
This is a wonderful novel of personal discovery, family relationships and budding maturity. The Vermont countryside and the seasonal variations were vividly portrayed.
ADDENDUM
Although I read this book some time ago, when reading my original review, I realized a feature of this story which I omitted and had recalled when I thought about the story of the "world below". I refer to the interesting history of the building of the Quabbin Reservoir in the 1930's in Western Massachusetts, which submerged towns. There have been tales and speculation about ghosts and remnants of previous civilization there. For an history, consult Wikipedia, or view
video.wgby.org/video/2365046325 for interesting video coverage.
This is a wonderful novel of personal discovery, family relationships and budding maturity. The Vermont countryside and the seasonal variations were vividly portrayed.
ADDENDUM
Although I read this book some time ago, when reading my original review, I realized a feature of this story which I omitted and had recalled when I thought about the story of the "world below". I refer to the interesting history of the building of the Quabbin Reservoir in the 1930's in Western Massachusetts, which submerged towns. There have been tales and speculation about ghosts and remnants of previous civilization there. For an history, consult Wikipedia, or view
video.wgby.org/video/2365046325 for interesting video coverage.
January 25, 2018
This is about a grandmother and her grandchild. The parallels drawn between their two lives were, for me, too similar.
The plot touches upon life in a TB sanatorium. This I found to be remarkably well done, particularly how it might have felt to be consigned there. Guilt and fear. The horror of seeing others die. The need to grab whatever you can of life before it is gone.
The 1930s construction of the Quabbin Reservoir and the subsequent submerging of several towns in Massachusetts plays into the tale too. To get a better understanding of these events, I read this article on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quabbin... I found it difficult to know what or who’s version to believe.
The audiobook is very well narrated by Judith Ivey.
The plot touches upon life in a TB sanatorium. This I found to be remarkably well done, particularly how it might have felt to be consigned there. Guilt and fear. The horror of seeing others die. The need to grab whatever you can of life before it is gone.
The 1930s construction of the Quabbin Reservoir and the subsequent submerging of several towns in Massachusetts plays into the tale too. To get a better understanding of these events, I read this article on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quabbin... I found it difficult to know what or who’s version to believe.
The audiobook is very well narrated by Judith Ivey.
February 20, 2013
I'm not sure what my final impressions of the book must be. The parallel between Cath and her grandmother Georgia did not work for me that well. I might have missed something.
The grandmother's story could have been told on its own and it would have been a very strong, unusual and powerful story. It was watered down by both 1) trying to add Cath's (mundane) story to it and making her the main character instead of Georgia, and 2) using sexual innuendos to 'enhance' the story, which did not work at all.
However, I see the desperate sexual intercourse between the eight-month pregnant Georgia and her husband, which he initiated after she confessed the love affair in the sanitarium to him, not as an act of forgiveness, but as an act of control.
He kept her locked up in the San, way longer than she should have been there, and then married her shortly after her release. He not only robbed her of her choices, but kept control over her for the rest of his life. But she did make her choices where he could not control it and it left her with beautiful memories of a first, although sad, love affair. Her bravery to appose the control, allowed her to find closure at her first love's grave.
I see a connection between the baby, Jessie, born way too early and being kept in ICU, connected to machines, and her great-grandmother Georgia's 'incarceration' in the sanitarium, in the sense that they both were fighting for their survival without any control over the decisions that was made on their behalf to save their lives. But the strength of the great-grandmother came through in the little helpless baby with Cath as the mediator to connect the two stories of the two generations.
The plot just did not rock my boat at all. There were unnecessary additions in the form of too many side characters. Cath's story should have been told on its own. Her life choices however, changed after she studied her grandmother's diary. It helped her to find her own independence and look for love in totally different places than she previously tried to and constantly lost.
The novel was written for another kind of reader. Sue Miller, has a beautiful, gentle, writing style. She is a talented builder of word castles and will reach the audiences it was intended for without a doubt.
The book was a gift to me. I am not one of her chosen readers. And that's probably sad too! I obviously missed the boat on this one and my interpretation might be totally wrong. But goodness it almost bored me to tears, to be honest. Perhaps I will one day try to read it again and find something different in it.
The grandmother's story could have been told on its own and it would have been a very strong, unusual and powerful story. It was watered down by both 1) trying to add Cath's (mundane) story to it and making her the main character instead of Georgia, and 2) using sexual innuendos to 'enhance' the story, which did not work at all.
However, I see the desperate sexual intercourse between the eight-month pregnant Georgia and her husband, which he initiated after she confessed the love affair in the sanitarium to him, not as an act of forgiveness, but as an act of control.
He kept her locked up in the San, way longer than she should have been there, and then married her shortly after her release. He not only robbed her of her choices, but kept control over her for the rest of his life. But she did make her choices where he could not control it and it left her with beautiful memories of a first, although sad, love affair. Her bravery to appose the control, allowed her to find closure at her first love's grave.
I see a connection between the baby, Jessie, born way too early and being kept in ICU, connected to machines, and her great-grandmother Georgia's 'incarceration' in the sanitarium, in the sense that they both were fighting for their survival without any control over the decisions that was made on their behalf to save their lives. But the strength of the great-grandmother came through in the little helpless baby with Cath as the mediator to connect the two stories of the two generations.
The plot just did not rock my boat at all. There were unnecessary additions in the form of too many side characters. Cath's story should have been told on its own. Her life choices however, changed after she studied her grandmother's diary. It helped her to find her own independence and look for love in totally different places than she previously tried to and constantly lost.
The novel was written for another kind of reader. Sue Miller, has a beautiful, gentle, writing style. She is a talented builder of word castles and will reach the audiences it was intended for without a doubt.
The book was a gift to me. I am not one of her chosen readers. And that's probably sad too! I obviously missed the boat on this one and my interpretation might be totally wrong. But goodness it almost bored me to tears, to be honest. Perhaps I will one day try to read it again and find something different in it.
October 6, 2018
Comparing professional reviews of Sue Miller's books (from such eminent places as the New York Times, LA Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, etc.) to the reviews and ratings that she tends to get on Goodreads makes me think that perhaps she is not getting the audience or kudos she deserves on this site. But I really enjoyed and admired Miller's weaving together of the two stories that dominate this book. Perhaps because my grandmother was also in a TB sanitarium after World War I, I was fascinated by the unfolding of Georgia's story through the perspective of / contrast with her middle-aged granddaughter Cath as Cath finds diaries and letters to augment stories she has heard from the past to quilt together her grandparents' story.
I was reminded somewhat of Anne Tyler's books in that there is no great conflict to drive this narrative forward--mostly just the unfolding of everyday life--and it is focused on family relationships across time. But, while I like Tyler, her writing sometimes seems a bit pedestrian to me (and her characters overly crotchety and self-serving), while Miller's lovely imagery, descriptions, and symbolism provide a lyrical, thoughtful storytelling that makes her writing sing in this book about how memory works, how we read and learn from the past, how we figure out – step by step – how to live meaningful lives. Several times while I was reading, I was arrested by a particularly evocative sentence or paragraph and had to read it several times because it felt so good to hear it in my head and see its picture in my mind.)
Perhaps one needs to have been through a certain stage/age of life to appreciate twice-divorced-and-somewhat-unsettled Cath as a character and narrator. I liked her relationship to her adult children, and while I didn't necessarily want to be part of their family, there are times when I wished I could be part of this book: crunching through a swath of fallen golden leaves in a New England autumn, peering into rippling Maine lake waters to try glimpsing the buildings of a long-ago buried town, wandering outside to stand in an angle of sunshine on a warm San Francisco Christmas day, strolling through snow as it falls on the village green on a dusky winter Vermont evening, snuggling into a dark corner booth in the local Babcock Inn to have a burger and a glass of "raw Chianti." The images from these scenes and the feelings that they evoked will stay with me for some time.
I was reminded somewhat of Anne Tyler's books in that there is no great conflict to drive this narrative forward--mostly just the unfolding of everyday life--and it is focused on family relationships across time. But, while I like Tyler, her writing sometimes seems a bit pedestrian to me (and her characters overly crotchety and self-serving), while Miller's lovely imagery, descriptions, and symbolism provide a lyrical, thoughtful storytelling that makes her writing sing in this book about how memory works, how we read and learn from the past, how we figure out – step by step – how to live meaningful lives. Several times while I was reading, I was arrested by a particularly evocative sentence or paragraph and had to read it several times because it felt so good to hear it in my head and see its picture in my mind.)
Perhaps one needs to have been through a certain stage/age of life to appreciate twice-divorced-and-somewhat-unsettled Cath as a character and narrator. I liked her relationship to her adult children, and while I didn't necessarily want to be part of their family, there are times when I wished I could be part of this book: crunching through a swath of fallen golden leaves in a New England autumn, peering into rippling Maine lake waters to try glimpsing the buildings of a long-ago buried town, wandering outside to stand in an angle of sunshine on a warm San Francisco Christmas day, strolling through snow as it falls on the village green on a dusky winter Vermont evening, snuggling into a dark corner booth in the local Babcock Inn to have a burger and a glass of "raw Chianti." The images from these scenes and the feelings that they evoked will stay with me for some time.
January 21, 2010
I found myself not liking the main characters in this book very much and either didn't think the novel had much to say or didn't care for what it did say. The women in the story had a frustrating way of blaming others or circumstances for the choices they themselves made. And they seemed to make a lot of baffling turns and sudden changes of direction that made no sense in the context of the novel to me. I couldn't relate to them and I couldn't appreciate them, either. Sometimes a novel with unlikable characters will still have something meaningful to say, but the significant message of this book (if there was one) was lost on me.
July 12, 2022
I have read many of this author’s books, and have liked them all. She has a way of writing that is unique to her, as though she is thinking aloud. She has perhaps a flair for dramatic but nuanced phrasing. This story is told by Cath, a woman in her 50’s, with 3 grown children, two failed marriages, and she is a teacher at a private school in San Francisco. She is contemplating a change, and she decides to take some time off and spend a few months at her long-dead grandparents’ house in Vermont, before determining whether she wants to sell the home or live in it. She discovers her grandmother’s diaries, and comes to know her as a woman and a person with a past life, instead of as Grandma. Cath and her grandmother, Georgia, are the story here, and their lives had many parallels.
This book set off a sense of nostalgia in me, and I thought of the grandmothers I had who were such a part of my life. The love they gave me, the strength they showed me, and the safe warmth I felt in their arms. Did I really know them as women though? Do grandchildren really know their grandparents as people? I am who I am because of my mother, my grandmothers, etc. And as I get older I wonder more and more. Anyway, I went off on a tangent. If you like Sue Miller you will like this book.
This book set off a sense of nostalgia in me, and I thought of the grandmothers I had who were such a part of my life. The love they gave me, the strength they showed me, and the safe warmth I felt in their arms. Did I really know them as women though? Do grandchildren really know their grandparents as people? I am who I am because of my mother, my grandmothers, etc. And as I get older I wonder more and more. Anyway, I went off on a tangent. If you like Sue Miller you will like this book.
June 12, 2012
I just finished this book. It was passed on to me, which is the only reason I read it. After reading it, I was mad at myself for wasting as much time as I did reading this book. It was poorly written and really had no point. It was about a women, who was trying to figure out her place in life, who goes back to her grandmother's house for a few months. It was boring, and just seemed to go on and on, leaving the reader to think that the ending must be REALLY good and a REALLY good surprise to make up for the rest of the book. Unfortunately, the ending is just as boring. If you need a book to help you sleep at night, this is the book for you.
April 25, 2025
Occasionally a special book that really speaks to us, as readers, crosses our paths. The World Below by Sue Miller is one such book for me. I’m not sure why though and I will try to unravel the mystery in this review.
Firstly, I never lived with my grandmother as a teenager as the main character Catherine Hubbard does. Nor did I have a tragic mother. Also, my grandmother was never sent to a sanitorium. Yes, I was a single mum but again the experience was different from Catherine’s. Yet somehow...
I recently went hunting for the book on my shelves and was in shock when I couldn’t locate it. This was a book I should never have given away. I did what most booklovers would do under the circumstances. I bought another copy. The main reason, at the time, was to discover how Miller portrayed the grandmother’s stay at the sanitorium. I ended up, of course, reading most of the book again.
The World Below begins with Catherine’s great great grandmother and great great grandfather arriving to take Georgia and her sisters home with them when their mother dies. They refuse and manage somehow with just their father to take care of them. This is the early years of the last century. Then when Georgia becomes ill with tuberculosis she is sent away to a sanitorium.
There are many stories in this book that Miller skilfully weaves together. There are the stories of her grandmother’s stay in the sanitorium, stories of Catherine’s two failed marriages and the tragic story of Catherine’s mother and what happens to her. In the present moments of the novel, Catherine visits her grandmother’s house to try and decide whether she will now live there in Vermont instead of San Francisco, where her three grown children reside. What I love is how Catherine really is at a crossroads in her life. She examines all these stories in her mind and ponders on the meaning of love and how her life differs from her grandmother’s. And then she discovers the diaries.
“Of course, I read them all. I was a greedy girl too, Abd then I read them again, and again. It was all I did for several days after Fiona (her daughter) left. And slowly pieces of the puzzles began to fall into place. Not all the pieces, not all the puzzles. But the one story among all the others in that trunk that I wanted to understand, those few years of my grandmother’s life, this shifted and sharpened and pulled into perspective. Some of it. Enough for it to become imaginable to me. Enough for me to begin to make a long narrative of the disparate stories she had told me over the years, and to pull in even some of the stories others had told me. Rue (her mother’s sister), for instance. Or my grandfather. Or my mother, the few times she had spoken clearly of her past or her parents.”
Towards the end of the novel there is a new man in Catherine’s life. Importantly she tells him a story about how her grandfather took her out on a lake nearby where below they could see the ruins of a drowned town. A telling incident occurs after this which I won’t reveal but I think I really found satisfying and then the final mystery of strange initials in her grandmother’s diaries which Catherine has to unravel. Both incidents seem to have had a powerful resonance for me. And make this a special book. Five stars.
Firstly, I never lived with my grandmother as a teenager as the main character Catherine Hubbard does. Nor did I have a tragic mother. Also, my grandmother was never sent to a sanitorium. Yes, I was a single mum but again the experience was different from Catherine’s. Yet somehow...
I recently went hunting for the book on my shelves and was in shock when I couldn’t locate it. This was a book I should never have given away. I did what most booklovers would do under the circumstances. I bought another copy. The main reason, at the time, was to discover how Miller portrayed the grandmother’s stay at the sanitorium. I ended up, of course, reading most of the book again.
The World Below begins with Catherine’s great great grandmother and great great grandfather arriving to take Georgia and her sisters home with them when their mother dies. They refuse and manage somehow with just their father to take care of them. This is the early years of the last century. Then when Georgia becomes ill with tuberculosis she is sent away to a sanitorium.
There are many stories in this book that Miller skilfully weaves together. There are the stories of her grandmother’s stay in the sanitorium, stories of Catherine’s two failed marriages and the tragic story of Catherine’s mother and what happens to her. In the present moments of the novel, Catherine visits her grandmother’s house to try and decide whether she will now live there in Vermont instead of San Francisco, where her three grown children reside. What I love is how Catherine really is at a crossroads in her life. She examines all these stories in her mind and ponders on the meaning of love and how her life differs from her grandmother’s. And then she discovers the diaries.
“Of course, I read them all. I was a greedy girl too, Abd then I read them again, and again. It was all I did for several days after Fiona (her daughter) left. And slowly pieces of the puzzles began to fall into place. Not all the pieces, not all the puzzles. But the one story among all the others in that trunk that I wanted to understand, those few years of my grandmother’s life, this shifted and sharpened and pulled into perspective. Some of it. Enough for it to become imaginable to me. Enough for me to begin to make a long narrative of the disparate stories she had told me over the years, and to pull in even some of the stories others had told me. Rue (her mother’s sister), for instance. Or my grandfather. Or my mother, the few times she had spoken clearly of her past or her parents.”
Towards the end of the novel there is a new man in Catherine’s life. Importantly she tells him a story about how her grandfather took her out on a lake nearby where below they could see the ruins of a drowned town. A telling incident occurs after this which I won’t reveal but I think I really found satisfying and then the final mystery of strange initials in her grandmother’s diaries which Catherine has to unravel. Both incidents seem to have had a powerful resonance for me. And make this a special book. Five stars.
October 1, 2009
I like Sue Miller. I have read a few of her books and rub my hands in excitement at the fact that I have unread offerings on my bookshelves.
The story of this book revolves around two women, Georgia the grandmother and Catherine her granddaughter. Catherine is all grown up and becomes a grandmother herself by the end of the book.
The book very easily and clearly moves between the stories of the women. Georgia’s grandmother is also a character, briefly, as is Catherine’s granddaughter. And yet this is not an epic in any way. It is the story of women. It is the story of the things women have happen to them. It is the story of the secrets women keep.
It is also the story of the discovery of one’s roots; of the randomness of existence. But for a single event none of us may exist - our grandparent’s grandparents had to meet in order for us to be. And maybe as the end we justify any means.
I got this off another review because I could not have said it better: Miller is a remarkable writer; her ability to give you immense detail in quick and easy segments is a true gift. Her characters are drawn so masterfully that you will feel like you have met them before, in real life. Georgia, whose story is relayed to us bit by bit, is as perfect a literary creation as any character can be --- and Miller, because she takes her time to reveal little by little Georgia's haunted past, keeps the reader so completely involved that they won't be able to put this book down for a moment.
The stories of the two women are gripping in their apparent simplicity. But the depth of their stories slowly becomes evident, sucking the reader further into the story and the interlinked lives of the generations of women in the book.
Men appear in the book too and Miller’s acute sense of the lives of women does not exclude men at all.
The last paragraph of the book will knock your socks off.
The story of this book revolves around two women, Georgia the grandmother and Catherine her granddaughter. Catherine is all grown up and becomes a grandmother herself by the end of the book.
The book very easily and clearly moves between the stories of the women. Georgia’s grandmother is also a character, briefly, as is Catherine’s granddaughter. And yet this is not an epic in any way. It is the story of women. It is the story of the things women have happen to them. It is the story of the secrets women keep.
It is also the story of the discovery of one’s roots; of the randomness of existence. But for a single event none of us may exist - our grandparent’s grandparents had to meet in order for us to be. And maybe as the end we justify any means.
I got this off another review because I could not have said it better: Miller is a remarkable writer; her ability to give you immense detail in quick and easy segments is a true gift. Her characters are drawn so masterfully that you will feel like you have met them before, in real life. Georgia, whose story is relayed to us bit by bit, is as perfect a literary creation as any character can be --- and Miller, because she takes her time to reveal little by little Georgia's haunted past, keeps the reader so completely involved that they won't be able to put this book down for a moment.
The stories of the two women are gripping in their apparent simplicity. But the depth of their stories slowly becomes evident, sucking the reader further into the story and the interlinked lives of the generations of women in the book.
Men appear in the book too and Miller’s acute sense of the lives of women does not exclude men at all.
The last paragraph of the book will knock your socks off.
June 29, 2022
An introspective account of family memories, attempting to explore the superficial view of events versus the view below (in the heart).
I really didn't mind Georgia's story - the historical aspects of where she grew up, the sanitarium experience, her life as a wife. In some ways it was a little frustrating from a real lack of information and thoughts, but that did lend to the theme. After all, it was viewed/told from her granddaughter's perspective which was limited to memories and short journal entries.
I think that we often try to nail down the whos, whys and whats of a person's life and almost make it into an understandable picture in black and white. We forget how varying and complicated our own lives can be, and I think this was shown well through the telling of Cath's own life.
It was kept from being a 4-star for me mostly because of character development. I didn't care too much for Cath, she was a bit too blandly neutral. One really interesting character (Rue, Georgia's sister) was almost completely ignored. And there wasn't a mind-blowing or thoughtful life lesson that I arrrived to at the end that would have made up for the character issues.
I really didn't mind Georgia's story - the historical aspects of where she grew up, the sanitarium experience, her life as a wife. In some ways it was a little frustrating from a real lack of information and thoughts, but that did lend to the theme. After all, it was viewed/told from her granddaughter's perspective which was limited to memories and short journal entries.
I think that we often try to nail down the whos, whys and whats of a person's life and almost make it into an understandable picture in black and white. We forget how varying and complicated our own lives can be, and I think this was shown well through the telling of Cath's own life.
It was kept from being a 4-star for me mostly because of character development. I didn't care too much for Cath, she was a bit too blandly neutral. One really interesting character (Rue, Georgia's sister) was almost completely ignored. And there wasn't a mind-blowing or thoughtful life lesson that I arrrived to at the end that would have made up for the character issues.
December 27, 2015
About a schizophrenic wife: "He hoped, he always hoped this; it's the disease that affects those who love people who are ill - that this would be a turning point for her, that things might be different from now on. She would make friends, she would have a life in the world that compelled and occupied her." Boy, aint that the truth. There's also an interesting discussion about keeping a diary, why, and why one would not destroy it. Haven't read Miller in a long time and I remember now why she impressed me so much - she's very relatable, realistic and wise.
July 16, 2014
I am not all that certain what to think about this book. I read the book, and throughout I kept hoping that more of a plot would develop. At one point, I realized I was almost half way though the book and there was no discernible direction for the story. I thought the last 20 or so pages were truly rushed, and when I finished I was left thinking "what did I read, and why?"
May 29, 2021
The World Below dances back and forth between modern day and 1919 Maine, a twice-divorced granddaughter from the West Coast and her tubercular grandmother who was sent to a sanitorium for a “cure” in 1919.
At her grandmother’s death, Catherine Hubbard relocates from the West Coast to her grandmother’s house in Maine and decides to piece together her grandmother’s life through the old diaries, letters and her own memories. At the same time she finds herself attempting to piece together her own life. This is a commonplace mechanism for writers of historical fiction, but there is nothing commonplace about this novel; Miller challenges so many assumptions – that what we say is what we mean, that a life or a relationship based on a lie or a habit or a compromise can’t ever lead to love and fulfillment and self-determination. As Miller chases the world below our surfaces, she delivers a satisfying read.
At her grandmother’s death, Catherine Hubbard relocates from the West Coast to her grandmother’s house in Maine and decides to piece together her grandmother’s life through the old diaries, letters and her own memories. At the same time she finds herself attempting to piece together her own life. This is a commonplace mechanism for writers of historical fiction, but there is nothing commonplace about this novel; Miller challenges so many assumptions – that what we say is what we mean, that a life or a relationship based on a lie or a habit or a compromise can’t ever lead to love and fulfillment and self-determination. As Miller chases the world below our surfaces, she delivers a satisfying read.
February 20, 2025
I started skimming about the half way point and eventually just skipped to last chapter. Didn’t really care about what happened to any of the characters except Seward. It didn’t hold my attention enough to find out. The only thing I found interesting was how TB was treated back then.
August 22, 2012
In San Fransisco fifty-two year old Catherine is attempting to remake her life after the collapse of her second marriage. When her aunt dies, Catherine inherits her grandmother's house in New England. Could this offer the chance of a new beginning? Catherine quits her job and travels across the country to the old house where her mother's mental instability meant that she spent many years of her childhood sheltering in the apparent tranquillity of her grandparents' world.
Here she begins a process of remembering her childhood while at the same time slowly unpicking the truth about her grandmother's life from a bundle of letters she discovers in the attic. It soon becomes clear that her grandparents' relationship, which had seemed so stable and unremarkable when Catherine had been a child, was far more complex and turbulent than she could ever have imagined.
This is a beautifully written book, full of reflection and with a luminous quality to the writing, particularly in those scenes set in the sanatorium where Georgia, Catherine's grandmother, is sent to recover from tuberculosis and where the imminence of death makes the inmates so hungry for life that they snatch at love with frantic greediness.
Immensely absorbing and wonderfully observed, this is the kind of fiction that does not merely entertain but seems to actually enlarge your world and increase your understanding of what it is to be human. I was filled with dismay when I found I had reached the end.
Here she begins a process of remembering her childhood while at the same time slowly unpicking the truth about her grandmother's life from a bundle of letters she discovers in the attic. It soon becomes clear that her grandparents' relationship, which had seemed so stable and unremarkable when Catherine had been a child, was far more complex and turbulent than she could ever have imagined.
This is a beautifully written book, full of reflection and with a luminous quality to the writing, particularly in those scenes set in the sanatorium where Georgia, Catherine's grandmother, is sent to recover from tuberculosis and where the imminence of death makes the inmates so hungry for life that they snatch at love with frantic greediness.
Immensely absorbing and wonderfully observed, this is the kind of fiction that does not merely entertain but seems to actually enlarge your world and increase your understanding of what it is to be human. I was filled with dismay when I found I had reached the end.
May 5, 2011
I read this book after reading Miller's "The Senator's Wife" and wanting to read more by her. I really found the imagery in this book fantastic! Miller does an excellent job of placing people in real life scenarios and then giving a provocative twist. The images of cities below a lake and the stories of her grandmother were very engaging, and I kept wanting to find out what would happen next. A great read!
July 25, 2014
I'm so glad I started reading Sue Miller. I love what she does with the past and the present, and with points of view for past and present, that makes her so-familiar characters seem like they are inhabiting two different worlds at once. Yet her prose stays so clear, like the reservoir in this book, under which is submerged an old New England town. I also like it that her characters make middle aged women seem smart and interesting with hard-won (and sometimes accidentally begotten) wisdom.
July 1, 2021
Every book that I read by Sue Miller is such a gem. This one opened my eyes to the realities and preoccupations of two disparate female protagonists. I rooted for them both and loved every minute of it. Miller has a way of making the world make sense that is so compelling and nourishing. I feel so fed by the experience of reading this beautiful book. I’m on such a Sue Miller kick and will be searching for other books of hers that I haven’t read.
March 18, 2009
The thing that stuck with me about this novel was the image of those houses below that resevoir. It reminded me of the novel Evidence of Things Unseen.
April 9, 2021
את הספר הזה קניתי, כמו הרבה ספרים אחרים שאני קונה, בגלל הכריכה החיצונית של הגירסה העברית. תמונת הטלאים, המורכבת מגזרי נייר בדגמים שונים, משכה את תשומת ליבי. קראתי את הספר אז, כשקניתי אותו, וזה היה בערך בסביבות 2005. נהניתי, אבל החזרתי למדף ועברתי הלאה. לאחרונה הגעתי אליו שוב, לקריאה שניה.
כנראה שזה ספר שצריך קריאה שניה, כי יש בו רבדים ורבדי רבדים. כמו תמונת הטלאים, כמו שמיכות הטלאים המסורתיות, הוא מורכב מקטעים שונים, זכרונות שונים, מתקופות שונות ומרמות תיעוד שונות. כל קטע נלקח מיריעה אחרת, שהיתה לה היסטוריה אחרת, והצירוך שלהם יחד, ללעיתים מסתיר את חומרי הגלם השונים. הפיסות הקטנות המחוברות יחד, אינן נראות כמו היריעות המקוריות ששימשו להכנתם.
המספרת היא אישה בשנות החמישים לחייה, שחוזרת לבית שבו גדלה בנערותה, אצל סבה וסבתה, ובדרך אגב מגלה את היומן של סבתא שלה. פתאום, מתוך הקריאה ביומן, ומתוך נקודת המבט של אישה בשלה ובוגרת, נקודת המבט השונה מזו שהיתה לה כנערה, היא מגלה פתאום שהמציאות היתה שונה ממה שהיה נראה לה, וכל מיני זכרונות על סבתא שלה, על סבא שלה, ועל היחסים ביניהם, מוארים אצלה באור שונה.
והנה "העולם שמתחת" עצמו- זיכרון של קת המספרת מימי נערותה, ביום שבו סבא שלה יוצא איתה לשיט באגם:
"האגם היה שקט, רוח לא נשבה והאוויר היה קריר. רכנתי בצידה של הסירה והנחתי לאצבעותי לרפרף על פני המים. לפתע ראיתי משהו עמוק מתחת לפני המים. רכנתי קצת יותר. "אני חושבת שיש שם בניינים למטה," אמרתי לאחר כמה שניות. סבי השמיע צליל של הסכמה.
התרוממתי מעט על ברכי. "אני חושבת שזו ממש עיר," אמרתי.
"אכן, זו עיר, קאת', או לפחות היתה עיר," אמר.
הבטתי בו. הוא לא היה מופתע. הוא ידע על כך. "אבל מה קרה?" שאלתי. "היה מבול?"
הוא צחק. "זה הסכר, יקירתי. הם בנו סכר על הנהר והטביעו את כל העיר."
הבטתי שוב במים. המראות הופיעו ונעלמו מתחת למים הנעים, ועימם גם התחושה של מה שהיה שם פעם. במשך רגעים ארוכים לא יכולתי להאמין למראה עיני. חשבתי שאני מדמיינת. ואז שוב נראו הבניינים, עצובים ומסתוריים. נשגבים, כמעט. נשגבים מפני שנעלמו לעד, ועדיין יכולנו לראותם ולדמיינם.
"כיצד יכלו לעשות דבר כזה?" שאלתי אותו. "ומה קרה לאנשים שגרו שם?"
"אינני חושב שנותרו עוד אנשים רבים כשזה קרה. וכשנפתח הסכר, אלה שנשארו היו חייבים ללכת."
"אבל זה נורא, לראות את כל העיר שלך שוקעת למצולות. כל המקומות שהיו שלך, שהיו יקרים לך".
"אני מניח שזה אכן היה נורא," אמר.
"זה כל כך... מוזר." רכנתי שוב והתבוננתי במראות שחלפו מתחתנו, אבל זה כמו עולם קסום, נכון? וגם עצוב."
"את צודקת, כמובן. זה באמת כך. עצוב ויפה. כפי שרוב הדברים העצובים הם גם יפים"
עד כאן הציטוט. כמו הקטע הזה, קאת' מגלה עולם שלם שנשאר מתחת למים. המון אפשרויות של מה היה אילו. כמו כן הספר פורש מקצת הקשיים של נשים בראשית המאה העשרים, וכן את הכוח שיש לאנשים מסוימים על אנשים אחרים, ואת התוצאות הבלתי ניתנות לצפיה של השימוש בכוח הזה.
כל ספר ששווה קריאה, שווה בעיני קריאה שניה, אבל בספר "העולם שמתחת" הקריאה השניה היתה מהנה יותר מהראשונה מכיוון שהיא חשפה עוד ועוד רבדים שנעלמו מעיני בהתחלה.
May 18, 2018
This novel came out just as I was revising a novel of my own. A woman is left by her husband (and not even for a younger woman), divorces, and moves from Vancouver, WA, to her grandmother’s broken down house in Astoria where finds the grandmother’s diary in the attic, her grandmother's secret out-of-wedlock pregnancy at age 15 in East Tennessee, and so forth.
If it sounds familiar that’s because The World Below by Sue Miller is pretty much the same story. When I read a review of this novel, I might have cried. I waited for the paperback to read it. Like mine, hers has many parallel experiences between generations. I read the novel in complete despair, trying to convince myself that this was a quite different novel. It isn't. It is not a bit funny (and mine was), but Miller is a fine writer and I confess I liked her book.
If it sounds familiar that’s because The World Below by Sue Miller is pretty much the same story. When I read a review of this novel, I might have cried. I waited for the paperback to read it. Like mine, hers has many parallel experiences between generations. I read the novel in complete despair, trying to convince myself that this was a quite different novel. It isn't. It is not a bit funny (and mine was), but Miller is a fine writer and I confess I liked her book.
February 15, 2023
One of the characters had to spend a significant amount of time in a sanatorium when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and doctors didn’t know much about how to treat it. Learning about that was interesting. Beyond that, I did not find this book interesting at all. There were many times when I truly did not care what was going to happen next.
I wouldn’t say it’s a bad book, just not a good book.
I wouldn’t say it’s a bad book, just not a good book.
December 6, 2025
simply great writing simply great book
Themes of
Love and loss, perseverance, forgiveness … the complexities of these things
Mental Illness in family environments
How a single event can change the trajectory of one’s life
Themes of
Love and loss, perseverance, forgiveness … the complexities of these things
Mental Illness in family environments
How a single event can change the trajectory of one’s life
July 18, 2022
I love that Sue Miller creates characters that are so real, using beautiful language to describe every day moments; like when she describes Robert and Cath putting the crib together. “While we worked, Robert and I talked in the easy way that’s possible when something else is taking up much of your attention.”
September 8, 2018
Sue Miller does such a beautiful job of showing the relationships of women from the same family and how they understand one another! Her writing is impeccable. She shies away from over sentimentality as this lovely story unfold as a set of grandmother’s diaries are uncovered.
March 11, 2020
I found this book on my shelf, having bought it years ago at a used book sale. The story did not hold together at all. I am putting it outside at our neighborhood free book box. The best thing I will say is that it passed a few mindless hours while vacationing up north on Lake Michigan.
February 20, 2024
3.5 stars
November 30, 2021
I found this book in a "Little Library on my block. It was confusing at times. I wanted a family tree. And then I just let the book unfold. It was extraordinary...about TB in the beginning of the 20th century, about marriage, and the financial relationships between men and women who were married. By the end, I wanted to have memorized the characters and events of the book. Georgia and her grand-daughter, Cath are so wonderfully developed. I won't put it back into the Little Library yet. I admit, I want to read it again. At the beginning, the novel was too fragmented for me to be astonished. As it went on, My own life, my mother's, my mother's mother's life began to dazzle me. I wished I could talk to my mother about the book, to her mother, who I never met.
I have more to write...about control and acceptance between men and women. About my own marriage and delights and heartaches. I imagine the readers who share negative reviews are either--not married, or not able to examine the delights and heartaches of their own marriages.
I have more specifics to ask about, or praise. I loved this book.
Possible spoilers:
moments I marked...Cath's return home after her life with her first husband, Peter, and then with her second, Joe (31 and 32) 175, Cath's life with her grandparents, Georgia and John (the doctor who thought she needed to be in the "San" for TB) and eventually married her. p. 261: John is feeling critical of Georgia. She took money from him; slowly, over time, scrimping on household items, on food. Learning to do without, so she could bring Seward Wallace home to bury him there. She did it for Seward's sisters, but also for herself. She'd loved him, and hadn't gone with him. John doesn't get what he did to make Georgia settle for, and then fall in love with him.
264 Cath, Georgia's grand daughter, realizes she had far more independence as a child than as a wife. 265 Georgia tells Cath she took the money, but not what she used it for. "I didn't want to tell him every single little thing I wanted. I didn't want everything to be a gift from him to me. John marches Georgia down to the band and open her own account for her. BRAVO. 268 "But what lasts after all? What stays the same through the generations?
I love generational stories. I simply wish that the author had included a family tree (including lovers, such as Seward), as well as a map of the places that mattered to them. The book is filled with mental and physical illness, children forced to grow up too soon...and the truth that not one of the characters is blameless, no matter how much they try to be "good," or to love well, or to grow into who they are by nature, or circumstance. It really is a beautiful, affecting novel.
I have more to write...about control and acceptance between men and women. About my own marriage and delights and heartaches. I imagine the readers who share negative reviews are either--not married, or not able to examine the delights and heartaches of their own marriages.
I have more specifics to ask about, or praise. I loved this book.
Possible spoilers:
moments I marked...Cath's return home after her life with her first husband, Peter, and then with her second, Joe (31 and 32) 175, Cath's life with her grandparents, Georgia and John (the doctor who thought she needed to be in the "San" for TB) and eventually married her. p. 261: John is feeling critical of Georgia. She took money from him; slowly, over time, scrimping on household items, on food. Learning to do without, so she could bring Seward Wallace home to bury him there. She did it for Seward's sisters, but also for herself. She'd loved him, and hadn't gone with him. John doesn't get what he did to make Georgia settle for, and then fall in love with him.
264 Cath, Georgia's grand daughter, realizes she had far more independence as a child than as a wife. 265 Georgia tells Cath she took the money, but not what she used it for. "I didn't want to tell him every single little thing I wanted. I didn't want everything to be a gift from him to me. John marches Georgia down to the band and open her own account for her. BRAVO. 268 "But what lasts after all? What stays the same through the generations?
I love generational stories. I simply wish that the author had included a family tree (including lovers, such as Seward), as well as a map of the places that mattered to them. The book is filled with mental and physical illness, children forced to grow up too soon...and the truth that not one of the characters is blameless, no matter how much they try to be "good," or to love well, or to grow into who they are by nature, or circumstance. It really is a beautiful, affecting novel.
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