Rating  - Better than Sophocles
I sent Sue Miller a letter about The Good Mother in the late 80s, and she graciously sent me a card. In my letter I stressed that unhappiness seemed to play a crucial role both in driving the action of The Good Mother, but also as a recurring theme. In her card she said, "I'm still at it," referring to her next novel.
A good example of this is the summer the teen-aged Anna spends with her father's parents in Wyoming. The heat is stifling, there is nothing for her to do, but she relishes the break from her demanding, achievement-conscious relatives back home. Her father's parents are silent country people who leave her alone.
The stay is uneventful until the grandparents realize Anna can play the piano. They sing hymns with her every night until she leaves.
The next summer Anna asks to stay with them again. They refuse. "She was a little too much for us to have here."
This is a microcosm of everything that happens to Anna in the novel. When you reach for happiness, you are sure to be punished.
I've read The Good Mother countless times. It has flaws, especially in the second half after the story suddenly downshifts from a love story to a courtroom drama. But there is one thing that distinguishes The Good Mother from all serious novels, all literary novels: the spreading of the guilt, the tragic responsibility, to four characters instead of only one or two.
Leo, of course, is responsible for Anna losing Molly, because he allowed Molly to touch his penis. Anna is responsible because she became so intimate with Leo that she lost her head and did not set firm rules about their nudity around the child.
But Molly is responsible, because she touched Leo's penis. And when she grows up she will certainly find out about this. She caused Anna to lose her, and thus to lose everything. And she threw away her own childhood with Anna. This will haunt Molly for the rest of her life.
Finally, Brian, Anna's ex-husband, is responsible, because as a lawyer he used the courts to take Molly away from Anna, not because he loved Molly, but because he wanted to hurt Anna. He knew she was finding sexual satisfaction from another man. He was jealous, he got his revenge.
Molly will certainly find out about this some day, and she will not forgive Brian.
Look at Sophocles. Look at King Lear. Look at Hamlet. Look at Ibsen. No tragedian ever spread the primordial guilt over four characters. But Sue Miller did it in The Good Mother, by what can only be called a stroke of genius.
The novel, whatever its flaws, will endure because of this extraordinary feat of inspiration.
Rating  - Controversial Choice for an Open-minded Book Group
I found this story of a divorced mother's first relationship following her divorce--and the reprecussions of that relationship--to be quite thought provoking. This book will stay with you long after you have finished it. It is multi-layered and offers more questions than answers. After finishing The Good Mother, my first thought was--I wish I belonged to a book group that had read this. The character of Anna is very well developed, yet I finished the book still thinking "What is the author's intention? Is Anna a 'good' mother?" The topics explored and the ultimate conclusion are controversial and merit discussion.
Rating - Thought provoking, and explicit. The Selfish Mother?
I just finished this book, and boy am I exhausted. I would have loved to have given this book 5 stars, but Sue Miller's book was a little to overly explicit and graphic about everything. I felt like I was a psychologist or "Shrink" listening to every detail of Anna's (the main charactor) thoughts. This divorced mother is trying to raise her young daughter, and discover her sexuality with her slezy boyfriend. She puts herself and her loser boyfriend ahead of her daughter, drinks too much, and has only part time jobs, while refusing help from her ex or family. She continuously complains, but doesn't change anything until she HAS to. A page turner until the end. But I found myself skipping sentences and then paragraphs because of needless detail.
Rating - Truthful and hard-hitting
There are a few of the things I think are great about Sue Miller's writing:
1) She treats all her characters with compassion and respect - her characters are not diaphanous or caricatures and she doesn't make a point of letting you know which ones you should and shouldn't like... they are just like "real" people you can actually relate to
2) she is not a fan of sugar-coating
This is an honest, compelling, and hard-hitting novel which doesn't force easy solutions or a happy ending, and I think it's a much stronger and more valid novel than most for it
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