The Lake Shore Limited

By: Sue Miller

Narrated by: Sue Miller

Four unforgettable characters beckon you into this spellbinding new novel from Sue Miller, the author of 2008’s heralded best seller The Senator’s Wife. First among them is Wilhelmina—Billy—Gertz, small as a child, fiercely independent, powerfully committed to her work as a playwright. The story itself centers on The Lake Shore Limited—a play Billy has written about an imagined terrorist bombing of that train as it pulls into Union Station in Chicago, and about a man waiting to hear the fate of his estranged wife, who is traveling on it. Billy had waited in just such a way on 9/11 to hear whether her lover, Gus, was on one of the planes used in the attack.

The novel moves from the snow-filled woods of Vermont to the rainy brick sidewalks of Boston as the lives of the other characters intersect and interweave with Billy’s: Leslie, Gus’s sister, still driven by grief years after her brother’s death; Rafe, the actor who rises to greatness in a performance inspired by a night of incandescent lovemaking; and Sam, a man irresistibly drawn to Billy after he sees the play that so clearly displays the terrible conflicts and ambivalence of her situation.

How Billy has come to create the play out of these emotions, how it is then created anew on the stage, how the performance itself touches and changes the other characters’ lives—these form the thread that binds them all together and drives the novel compulsively forward.

A powerful love story; a mesmerizing tale of entanglements, connections, and inconsolable losses; a marvelous reflection on the meaning of grace and the uses of sorrow, in life and in art: The Lake Shore Limited is Sue Miller at her dazzling best.

Powerful Book and Great Narration

I am a fan of Sue Miller and have enjoyed reading and listening to many of her books. This one had gotten luke-warm reviews, so I didn't download it right away. I'm glad I did--the author, not surprisingly, did a wonderful narrating job and the story was interesting--a "play within a play," a 9/11 angle without being overbearing, and several interesting characters that we come to know in increasing depth as the novel progresses. Highly recommended.

Bravo!

Another beautifully written and artfully developed story. I am part of it with every word. She touches upon feeling I have/have had with every character. And with Sue Miller's reading of her words - oh its just masterful. I can't get enough of her writing and characters. Give me more.

Sue Miller, Limited

Another summer much ado about not much. Endless details about everyone's relationship to everyone else, and as a literary hook, how these relationships might or might not hinge on a rather thin play written by one of them. The whole mess is about how one of the characters was not in love with another one who died. Miller reads her own work in a low, slow, often raspy voice that often drops the last two words of a sentence. Although Miller has an amazing grasp of language and the subtleties of human nature, I found myself screaming with boredom internally as I waded through her characters' uninteresting minds. Not much happened, except Miller, I assume, will be making some money this summer.

Extraordinary

All about loss, by death and also by life. And about the wealth of it happening.
The pain and the gain of mourning.
Wonderfully screened and written.
A book to remember

Sue Miller did it again!

I just finished listening to this novel by Sue Miller. I had read some disappointing reviews and was a little hesitant at starting it but I wasn't disappointed. Sue Miller does a great job at reading the novel herself as is often the case for her novels with Audible. I am a fan of Sue Miller and find that every novel that I have read from her so far captures my interest and there is always a new twist on things. This one reads like a mise en abyme where the the central character Billie is a playwright who authored a play inspired by 9-11. Her characters who share a voice in the different chapters include the main actor in the play, Billie herself, her life prior to 9-11 and the lover she lost in that tragedy as well as the family she had then. I highly recommend it!