Riveting . . . While I Was Gone [celebrates] what is impulsive in human nature. -The New York Times Miller weaves her themes of secrecy betrayal and forgiveness into a narrative that shines. -Time Jo Becker has every reason to be content. She has three dynamic daughters a loving marriage and a rewarding career. But she feels a sense of unease. Then an old housemate reappears sending Jo back to a distant past when she lived in a communal house in Cambridge Massachusetts. Drawn deeper into her memories of that fateful summer in 1968 Jo begins to obsess about the person she once was. As she is pulled farther from her present life her husband and her world Jo struggles against becoming enveloped by her past and its dark secret. [While I Was Gone] swoops gracefully between the past and the present between a woman s complex feelings about her husband and her equally complex fantasies-and fears-about another man. . . . [Miller writes] well about the trials of faith. -The New York Times Book Review Quietly gripping . . . Jo shines steadily as the flawed and thoroughly modern heroine. As in her 1986 novel The Good Mother Miller shows how impulses can fracture the family. -USA Today Marvelous . . . poignant . . . powerful. -Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer