Miller's Valley: A Novel

Miller’s Valley by Anna Quindlen is told from Mary Margaret’s (Mimi) point of view. Mimi is a young girl growing up in Miller’s Valley where the government wants to move everyone out the valley (where it floods the homes when it rains) and flood it creating a reservoir. We get to see how Mimi grew up, her family, and her home life (the book starts when she is eleven years old). Mimi’s Aunt Ruth lives in a cottage behind the main farmhouse. Aunt Ruth never leaves her cottage. She does not do cooking and expects meals to be brought to her. She also has to have someone do the shopping. Mimi’s mother, Miriam is a nurse and her father, Buddy runs the family farm. Her brother, Tommy goes off to fight in the Vietnam War and returns a different man. We get to see Mimi grow up in Miller’s Valley, live her life, go to school, get married, and then, ultimately, come back to Miller’s Valley. I thought Miller’s Valley would be more than the life of one girl growing up in a small town. I found Miller’s Valley to be boring. The story is told in the first-person perspective (which I really dislike). It was more like reading a diary than a novel. I had a very hard time staying awake to read it. There is no depth to the book. The book is simple and easy to read, but there is no spark. This book does not leave with any impression when you are done reading it (except glad it is over). I give Miller’s Valley 2.5 out of 5 stars. I received a complimentary copy of Miller’s Valley from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review of the novel.

Miller's Valley entertaining and satisfying despite the incongruity of the ending Mary Margaret Miller is a young girl growing up on a farm in Miller's Valley, a small community in rural America in the 1960's. There's nothing unusual about her family or her life: she has two older brothers - one's away at college, the other is a lovable rogue, her father works the farm, her mother is a nurse at the local hospital, an aunt lives in a small cottage on the farm. The only thing that makes Miller's Valley different from thousands of similar rural hamlets is the government has plans to raise a nearby dam and flood the valley displacing the few families who live there. This a theme that runs throughout the book looming over the lives of the Miller family though never really effecting them since there is no set timeline for the flooding. Through the point of view of Mary Margaret the reader comes to know a loving and, more or less, functioning family, their friends and neighbours living in middle America during this period. Quindlen is such a fine writer I was immediately drawn in. Her gift is that she makes the reader feel like they know, have known, or know someone just like her characters. Her prose is so seamless you don't realize you're reading a book - more like experiencing it. Unlike some of Quindlen's work that can leave you with PTSD (Every Last One, One True Thing, Black and Blue) nothing really dramatic happens in Miller's Valley. There's regular love, life and death but it's not agonizing, unimaginably violent or pathologically cruel. It's just your run of the mill stuff - strokes, abortions, infidelity, drug abuse - but it's balanced with love and real caring. Sound boring? It's not. Every time I sat down to read it was like catching up with a friend. I had no idea how Miller's Valley would end and apparently neither did the author, because what she implies in the last few pages is incongruous to the story that has come before. I simply could not believe it. Despite the rather bizarre ending, Miller's Valley is a satisfying and entertaining read.

A can't put it down book! I cried at several stories. Love this book.