BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF “THE SENATOR’S WIFE” AND “THE GOOD MOTHER,”

NYS Writers Institute, February 2, 2009
4:15 p.m. Seminar | Standish Room, Science Library
8:00 p.m. Reading | Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

CALENDAR LISTING:
Sue Miller, novelist, author of numerous bestsellers that have been adapted into film, will read from and discuss her new novel, “The Senator’s Wife” (2008) on Monday, February 2, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. in the Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m. the author will present an informal seminar in the Standish Room, Science Library, on the uptown campus. The events are sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and are free and open to the public.

PROFILE
Sue Miller, bestselling fiction writer, first commanded national attention with the publication of her 1986 novel, “The Good Mother,” about a single mother threatened suddenly with losing custody of her child. The book was inspired in part by Miller’s own challenges as a single parent. In 1988, the novel was adapted as a major motion picture directed by Leonard Nimoy, and starring Diane Keaton and Liam Neeson.

Writing for the “New York Times Book Review,” Linda Wolfe said of “The Good Mother,” “Every once in a while, a first novelist rockets into the literary atmosphere with a novel so accomplished that it shatters the common assumption that for a writer to have mastery, he or she must serve a long, auspicious apprenticeship. The novel arrives, all its parts gleaming, ticking, and we are filled with awe.”

Miller’s latest book is “The Senator’s Wife” (2008), which explores the private troubles of a political marriage between a hero of progressive causes (also a serial philanderer) and his shy, retiring wife.

The “New York Times” reviewer Judith Warner said, “Miller plays her hand in a masterly fashion…. [She is] a clever storyteller with a penchant for the unexpected and a talent for depicting the bizarre borderline acts, the unfortunate boundary crossings and the regrettable instances of excessive self-indulgence that can destroy a world in a blink.”

“The Senator’s Wife” is the fifth novel by Miller to make it to the “New York Times” Bestseller List in hardcover.

Other works by Miller that have been adapted for film or television include “While I Was Gone” (1999), which became a 2004 film starring Kirstie Alley; “Family Pictures” (1990), which became a 1993 ABC television movie starring Anjelica Huston and Sam Neill; and the title story of “Inventing the Abbots and Other Stories” (1987), which was adapted as a 1997 film starring Joaquin Phoenix and Billy Crudup.

Miller is also the author of the novel “Lost in the Forest (2005) and the memoir “The Story of My Father” (2003). “Lost in the Forest” is the tale of a family shattered by the unexpected death of a beloved stepfather. Writing in the “Washington Post,” Richard Bausch said, “‘Lost in the Forest’ is a shining affirmation that [Miller’s] power only continues to grow.” The “Los Angeles Times” said, “Wonderful—rich, intelligent and moving ... this is the fiction we need.”

Miller’s memoir describes her father’s battles with Alzheimer’s disease. The London “Daily Telegraph” called it, “A cool, lucid, often painfully frank account … remarkable for its honesty and courage, and for the muted gallantry with which its subject met the loss of everything that made him human.”

Miller also co-edited the 2007 edition of the bestselling fiction anthology, “Best New American Voices” (2006).

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.