
While I Was Gone
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Narrated by:
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Blair Brown
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By:
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Sue Miller
About this listen
A decade ago she put a face on every mother's worst nightmare with her phenomenal best seller The Good Mother. Now, Sue Miller delivers a spellbinding novel of love and betrayal that explores what it means to be a good wife.
In the summer of 1968, Jo Becker ran out on the marriage and the life her parents wanted for her, and escaped - for one beautiful, idyllic year - into a life that was bohemian and romantic, living under an assumed name in a rambling group house in Cambridge. It was a time of limitless possibility, but it ended in a single instant when Jo returned home one night to find her best friend lying dead in a pool of blood on the living room floor.
Now Jo has everything she's ever wanted: A veterinary practice she loves, a devoted husband, three grown daughters, a beautiful Massachusetts farmhouse. And if occasionally she feels a stranger to herself and wonders what happened to the freedom she once felt, or how she came to be the wife, mother, and doctor her neighbors know and trust - if at times she feels as if her whole life is vanishing behind her as she's living it - she need only look at her daughters or her husband, Daniel, to recall the satisfactions of family and community and marriage.
But when an old housemate settles in her small town, the fabric of Jo's life begins to unravel: Seduced again by the enticing possibility of another self and another life, she begins a dangerous flirtation that returns her to the darkest moment of her past and imperils all she loves.
While I Was Gone is an exquisitely suspenseful novel about how quickly and casually a marriage can be destroyed, how a good wife can find herself placing all she holds dear at risk. In expert strokes, Sue Miller captures the precariousness of even the strongest ties, the ease with which we abandon each other, and our need to be forgiven. An extraordinary book, her best, from a beloved American writer.
©1999 Random House, Inc.; 1999 Sue MillerListeners also enjoyed...
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Overall
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Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
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Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
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He Who Fights with Monsters 2
- A LitRPG Adventure (He Who Fights with Monsters, Book 2)
- By: Shirtaloon, Travis Deverell
- Narrated by: Heath Miller
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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But Jason Asano is settling into his new life. Now, a contest draws young elites to the city of Greenstone to compete for a grand prize. Jason must gather a band of companions if he is to stand a chance against the best the world has to offer. While the young adventurers are caught up in competition, the city leaders deal with revelations of betrayal as a vast and terrible enemy is revealed. Although Jason seems uninvolved, he has unknowingly crossed the enemy’s path before.
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Contrary to common reviews
- By Karen on 05-21-21
By: Shirtaloon, and others
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Brain Damage
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.
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Who Else Laughed, Cried, and Shuddered?
- By Jennifer Chichester on 09-16-22
By: Freida McFadden
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Starship Troopers
- By: Robert A. Heinlein
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.
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The definitive version!
- By Kristopher G. Hesson on 10-03-24
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
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The House on the Water
- A Novella
- By: Margot Hunt
- Narrated by: Taylor Schilling
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
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Every year, Caroline Reed takes a trip with her best friend, Esme Lamont. They’re usually accompanied by their spouses - but this year, everything’s changed. Esme has just gone through a bitter divorce, and Caroline's wondering if her own marriage is reaching its breaking point as she and her husband, John, cope with the discovery that their son has been abusing drugs. Still, the inseparable duo books a weeklong stay at a beach-front home in Shoreham, Florida, inviting Esme’s brother, Nick, and his new husband. After a blissful first night in the vacation home, tragedy strikes.
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Wonderful Story
- By David M. Wilcox on 12-04-20
By: Margot Hunt
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Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry's Definitive Collection
- By: Stephen Fry, Washington Irving, M.R. James, and others
- Narrated by: Stephen Fry
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.
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Wonderful narration. Mediocre stories.
- By Michael Fuchs on 11-07-23
By: Stephen Fry, and others
What listeners say about While I Was Gone
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dina
- 06-06-21
Enjoyed this very much!
After reading the initial reviews I was hesitant to listen to the audiobook. I was prepared to not really enjoy this book. But I enjoyed it thoroughly. Although part of the storyline and the ultimate ending were somewhat predictable, it still left me eagerly anticipating if what I thought would occur actually would take place. I listened to it in its entirety in one night. I would definitely recommend it.
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- Desiderata
- 03-23-25
Simply, amazing
Once in a great while the alchemy of a wonderful book meets its equivalent in a masterful narrator. This is such the case in Blair Brown’s delivery of Sue Miller’s amazing story of austerities that procure forgiveness.
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- M
- 04-19-22
Unexpected
This book was FAR from what I expected & not one I would have chosen, but it's well written. I was uninterested more than half way through wanting it to be over & then my attention was grasped with the shocking reveal. It is Not a revelation of while she was gone & how she would grow & develop during that time as I thought it would be, but instead how she left one husband & life & was ready to leave again until... Even though the situations were different. A story of things & people not being what or whom they seem. A story of the need to share faults with someone else in order to recognize & forgive oneself.
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- Gardiner
- 05-26-22
Enjoyable
Nobody describes the verisimilitude of marriage or family life better than sue Miller, sometimes not everyone may appreciate, but I do. This story is engaging on other levels as well, particularly the second half. I do wish the narrator had used different cadences & inflections for different characters, but everyone seems to speak exactly alike by her reading. Not a terrible problem, tho.
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- Tammy L. Virgili
- 08-27-18
One of my all-time favorite books...
I have always absolutely loved this book. It such an intimate and realistic view of a person’s true identity. An imperfect wife and mother, who draws you in. An imperfect marriage, that makes you want to cheer for their relationship. I read this EVERY fall/winter, and never stop enjoying being invited in to Jo’s Home, for the season.
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2 people found this helpful
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- uccjls
- 02-23-24
The reader was good
Did not like how she didn’t act like the adult she was in terms of life choices in the plot
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- Ann Keller
- 01-06-25
Interesting characters
It was interesting the lives & development of several characters. Like the theme about different life styies.
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- Sarah Gudmunson
- 05-27-20
Good book overall, not a great story line
This is a fairly short book. The beginning didn’t really draw me in and I kept wondering to myself, until nearly the end of the book, when the story line was going to start revealing itself to me. When it ended, I was actually shocked it was over. I remember thinking, “that’s it??”
That being said, the writing itself was good. I liked the characters, for the most part. I think the author was aiming to reveal a grand “moral of the story”, and I think it did have a bit of that, but even this area seemed lacking.
P.S. Please know that this is only my opinion! I am not a professional, I do not have an English degree! Just my take on the book. :)
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- D - Mom
- 07-27-18
Interesting
Narration was great
The story was good. Interesting is the only word I can think of to describe it.
. Made me mad at times and surprised me as well.
Overall enjoyable
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- Eun
- 03-30-23
Excellent
Jo Becker upended her world the year she left her husband and moved into a communal building with strangers. After divorcing her husband, she met and married Danielle a minister with whom she raised three daughters. Quite unexpectedly.Jo becomes reacquainted with one of the roommates from years ago. After being re-introduced to Eli, I wondered if perhaps Joe would take another path and stray from her marriage to Daniel.
I must confess when I first started this read/listen it felt as though the story plotted along. But after a short time, it picked up the pace, and I listened intently to the story.
While I Was Gone is an excellent character study, not only of Jo Becker, but of marriage, and how fragile it is in the wake of our actions. An excellent read by Sue Miller. Blythe Danner was the narrator who brought the characters to life.
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