The Lake Shore Limited

I find Sue Miller's novels to be hit or miss. Her latest, The Lake Shore Limited, is, I believe, one of her most accomplished novels. She writes from the perspective of four different people whose lives all intersect around a play titled The Lake Shore Limited. It is very loosly based around events of 9/11 and the playwright's own experience of losing her lover on that day.

But this in no way is a story about 9/11. Is it about human reactions to events and to each other, and unexpected emotions that may or may not have surfaced at the time. Not all of the characters are likable, yet Miller does a masterful job of weaving the four stories together and giving enough depth to each character that we want to know what will happen to each of them.

This is also a story of how art effects life, and the novel mirrors the play of the title in that the end is really only a beginning, as in life itself.