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    The Lake Shore Limited
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    The Lake Shore Limited
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    The Lake Shore Limited
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Lake Shore Limited

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 6, 2010
    ISBN9780307715128
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Lake Shore Limited

    3.5/5

    173 ratings31 reviews

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    • 4/5
      just the kind of book i like. a string of complex tortured souls that can't quite find happiness.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable read, though not perfect by any means. Some intersting questions explored about guilt and love and death.
    • 4/5
      Slow, but somehow appropriate for the day I am having. Also, I love reading about theatre.
    • 5/5
      I really do think this is an excellent book. I reckon there's a lot more subtle meaning and inference in it than many LT reviewers are making out. I don't think the 9/11 connection is as strong as people might expect it to be. To me, 9/11 provided some sort of backdrop to events that could just have easily and validly for the story line have been a quite different setting. It seems to me that Miller has put a lot of thought into this story, and I appreciated the impact that made. On the other hand, maybe my identification with some plot situations and with one of the characters in particular gave the novel a particular resonance for me. I like Sue Miller's writing and have read all her works. I hope she keeps writing as she seems to be improving with age.
    • 4/5
      A really lovely story that follows four characters, 2 men and 2 women, through ordinary lives that ring startingly true. Each struggles with establishing connections, managing family, love, and all the related choices and the result is a simple but very sastisfying read.
    • 5/5
      this is a novel that I will be studying (for technique) and contemplating (for the characters, who seemed so vivid and fully developed) for a long time. Set in Boston, I could recognize every street and restaurant, which added to the pleasure I derived from Sue Miller's work. But also, she follows four characters, each of them connected to the other three in some way which isn't always apparent at first look. And a play is at the heart of this novel, weaving together these two art forms as I have never seen done before. Highly recommended
    • 3/5
      Found this by chance at Jaume Fuster while waiting to go to H2O Great read, delicate subject treated with flair. Not as mind blowing as The Good Mother, but that would be difficult. Enjoyed it.
    • 3/5
      A decent book with a good plot but not interesting enough to hold my attention for very long. I felt like the idea of regret in a relationship and the guilt that goes along with it was compelling but the book tried to cover too many characters and didn't do the plot justice.
    • 4/5
      An interesting concept that someone should use 9/11 as the basis for a story, but to be honest if you didn't know that you might not pick it up. This is the story of a play - the characters in it and outside it, who it is based on.Billy's boyfriend Gus was on one if the planes that hut the Twin Towers. What no one knew was that she was about to leave him. Gus's sister thinks Billy should be caught up in her grief, but now thinks its time Billy started dating again and introduces her to Sam. Into the mix comes Rafe, the actor playing Gus.This seemed a slow read. 9/11 seemed a prop rather than really exploring the event and emotions - so why mention it. The play seemed a bit convoluted to make a point - not really a powerful one. And the ending, if course, was obvious! An ok read, but not the powerful one I was expecting
    • 5/5
      Probably the best Sue Miller I’ve read in a while, this follows the lives, loves and inter-relationships of four middle aged people – Leslie, Billy, Rafe and Sam. Two are women, but frankly with names like those you would be forgiven for assuming they were all men.The novel’s plot revolves around the death of of the partner of one of the characters on 9/11, but the story isn’t really about 9/11, it’s more an examination of the nature of relationships, in particular imperfect relationships. I was struck by how readily the people who populate the book give up on their relationships out of boredom. Are we really so lacking in any kind of staying power? And yet with the divorce rate so high, maybe Sue Miller is simply telling it like it is. She certainly shows how the course of love is as rocky in your forties and fifties as it is in your teens.I liked the tone of this book, the measured way in which all the characters were introduced, and given space in which to come to life. We see them from their point of view and from others’, we delve into their past, we analyse their deepest thoughts. As long as you’re interested in them (and I was) this is a fascinating read.
    • 4/5
      just the kind of book i like. a string of complex tortured souls that can't quite find happiness.
    • 4/5
      The Lake Shore Limited centers around four main characters: Billy -- a playwright whose show, The Lake Shore Limited, has just opened; Leslie -- almost Billy's sister-in-law (at least in her mind) as Billy was with her brother Gus until he was killed in 9-11; Rafe -- the star of the play The Lake Shore Limited and also caring for his invalid wife; and Sam -- Leslie's friend who she is trying to fix up with Billy. The book starts with opening night of The Lake Shore Limited. At first I was irritated that Miller went into such detail about the play--we didn't just get the plot but the actual lines and descriptions of the actors like we were watching the play along with characters in the book . . . but then I was sucked into the play itself and what happens in the play becomes an integral part of the book itself. Very different and very effective. I enjoyed this book very much.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book as I have other Sue Miller books. It bogged down a bit in the middle and I really didn't think that Rafe, the actor's section, added a lot to the story. Also, Miller used the final narrative for each character to0 neatly and too cleanly tie up the action. It was all a bit too hopeful. However, I did like small elements of the book. I found it creative to have a character who was going to end a relationship and then have something like 9/11put her into a role she didn't want. I did find Billy a bit hard to take and her dealing with Sam after he was with her at the ER was so rude and hard to accept. She was very self centered. I really felt Sam's anguish over his situation with his oldest child and how toughit was for him to raise his kids after his wife died. All in all, it was a good character study and it kept my interest. Not a 4 star but a good effort from an excellent author.
    • 4/5
      The audio, read by Sue Miller, gave just the right emphasis along the way in this interesting treatment of emotions. I thoroughly enjoy her writing so it was a special pleasure to hear her read her own work and know how she meant what she wrote to be interpreted by how she read.
    • 5/5
      In addition to being a very fine novel, The Lake Shore Limited is a study of grief, loss, love, and the persistence of hope. Four lengthy sections sketch out each of the four main characters. Leslie, a fifty-ish real estate agent, is still reeling from the loss of her much younger brother, Gus, who was on one the highjacked planes at the heart of the 9/11 tragedy. She worries about Billy, Gus's fiancée, a playwright who seems to have withdrawn into her own grief. The truth is that Billy is weighed down by her conflicted feelings: she had decided to break off with Gus right before the tragedy, and her latest play, 'The Lake Shore Limited,' focuses on Gabriel, a character in a similar conflict. Neither one can reconcile their thoughts with their feelings or with feelings 'appropriate' to their circumstances. Similarly, Rafe, the actor who plays Gabriel, is dealing with the fact that his wife is slowly dying from ALS. And then there is Sam, whose first wife died of cancer and whose second divorced him. These four come together when Leslie and her husband invite Sam to attend a preview of the play and have a drink with the playwright, Billy, afterwards.As the characters' stories develop and intersect, Miller reminds us that life is never easy and that feelings are rarely black or white. Nor are they usually isolated. There are times when it is possible to hate what you love and and to love what you hate; to be both hopeful and fearful at the same time; to feel simultaneously empty and satisfied. That's the nature of being human, and Miller explores it in depth. As the novel draws near it's close, Miller returns to her section-per-character structure, only this time the sections are very brief, showing us the characters beginning to move past their moments of personal crisis. In the end, I was left thinking of Samuel Beckett's line, "I can't go on, I'll go on."Like the characters, The Lake Shore Limited was often funny, more often a little sad, but always human. It kept me wanting to read further (and took me away from other things I needed to be doing), which is always the sign of a well-structured plot and interesting, believable characters. Miller is obviously adept at delving into the human psyche. A satisfying (it's hard to say "enjoyable" about a book where the characters are often in pain) read, highly recommended. I will be looking for more of Miller's fiction.
    • 4/5
      This story is told from the perspective of several people who are all linked by a play, The Lake Shore Limited. Billy, the playwright, lost her boyfriend Gus in the 9/11 attacks. Gus's sister Leslie attends the opening night of the play and brings a friend Sam who she hopes to introduce to Billy. As the events unfold, Miller uses the varied perspectives to explore the complexities of relationships. This book surprised me a little. After the first few chapters, I liked the story, but wasn't wowed by it. But bit by bit, as the characters' voices blend together, Miller writes insightfully about relationships. In the end, Miller draws contrasts between the stories shared here that show the nuances in the ways that relationships develop and the ways that they end. I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
    • 5/5
      At first, I avoided this book because I thought it was about 9/11. But it was really just a whisper of 9/11, and handled in a rather original way. I'd recommend this novel to anyone who liked Sue Miller's other books, or is looking for a quiet, thoughtful, contemplative story with interesting characters. It's the story of Billy, a playwright; Leslie, her ex-lover's sister; Sam, who used to be in love with Leslie and is now drawn to Billy; and Rafe, the principal actor in Billy's newest play.
    • 5/5
      This was fabulous. The book is a composite of four different characters stories set around a play being performed in New York. The Lake Shore Limited is the title of the play as well as this book and the play concerns a terrorist attack on the train with that name which runs from Chicago to New York. In the play inside the book this is a thinly veiled parallel to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in which the play characters work through themes of love and loss and for most of the play live in a world of Schroedinger's Cat in which they don't know if a character has lived or died. In the book it turns out that the playwright is working from her real life to a large degree as she lost a boyfriend she was already falling out with on September 11th. There are huge quantities of emotional layers to this story. It really gets into how complicated relationships can grow to be over long periods of time. I felt all the characters were real people.The author's choice of the four characters to focus on seemed a little odd to me each time the voice changed but each time I realised after a while what this character was adding to the overall picture. Each character has a long section from their viewpoint and the only thing I thought didn't quite work in the book was revisiting each character quickly at the end of the story. I thought this seemed a bit tacked on and added little that hadn't been said earlier.Overall a very deep and full story and one I'm glad I picked up.
    • 3/5
      Devastation is the expected resonse to the death of a loved one. This is a book about all of the other complicated emotions that can interfere with pure frief, and the impossibility of expressing those emotions. The book focuses on the web of people who surround a young man who died in the 9/11 attacks. His girlfriend writes a play about the experience, revealing that she might not be as grief-stricken as she ought to be. The play's viewers and actors form the core of the group of characters. The play focuses on an aging academic, caught in the drama of not knowing what has happened when a terrorist attack is reported on his wife's train. The play is, of course, meant to be a metaphor for the playwright, Billie's, own relationship. It's very difficult to write a play within a novel, and I can't say that this novel is better for it. So much of the book focuses on the play, and the play is just not all that interesting or nuanced. The play is such an important part of the story, but it's essentially flat. I didn't think that this was one of Miller's better books. I much preferred While I Was Gone.
    • 5/5
      I was quite surprised to read this book has gotten negative reviews - to me it was nearly a perfect novel: beautifully written, and especially the structure. The four main characters, Leslie, Billy, Rafe, and Sam, are explored through a play written by Billy. Gus, brother of Leslie and lover of Billy, was killed on 9/11; Billy, who was about to break up with him, writes a play about a woman who may have been killed in a train explosion, whose husband, played by Rafe, has a lover and isn't sure if he wants his wife to have been killed or to return. We first learn about the play, and her feelings about Gus and Billy, through Leslie's eyes, as she goes to it with Sam, whom she's fixing up with Billy.Then we see the play in a new way, through its writer's eyes, and learn the truth about her relationship with Gus - which she's exploring in the play.And then Rafe, who plays the lead, gives new perspective on the play, on Billy, and on his own tragedy - his wife's illness.(Sam was a bit extraneous for me, and more tangential to the central tragedy.)It's amazing to me how Miller can so convincingly portray such different characters - their interior lives, how they talk, what they do.
    • 3/5
      Sue Miller is an effective writer. As with skilled politicians, she is able to keep on message. This work communicates the elusiveness--and endurance--of love among four key characters. I think that cutting between each weakens the bond between reader and narrative, reader and characters; however, she is able to provide perspective shifts, so it's not a complete loss. Yet, it's a very cool novel, and for all its focus on love very dry. Are we all doomed to serial monogamy and then death or Alzheimers? Boston is a major character, and Miller intergrates a play, a theatrical work, most shrewdly. Technically, it's the work of a very skilled writer. It's just that I wish I felt more for these people, that they didn't vanish as quickly as footprints in the surf.
    • 2/5
      I agree that this was better than "The Senator's Wife", which I did not like at all, however it is not one of Miller's best. The character development was interesting, but I think you really had to be 50 something to relate to it.
    • 3/5
      I like Sue Miller a lot, but I found this book incredibly boring. It was really a struggle to get through it. I couldn't relate to these characters, and there was something irritating about having a play described to me (I wanted to see it, not read a description of it!). Miller is a gifted enough writer that I did finish the book, but it wasn't easy.
    • 5/5
      Miller is an elegant, subtle writer. Here a play ostensibly written about a uniting event among the characters, the death of her boyfriend Gus, causes each character to examine themselves and their relationships. Miller shows the read through alternating narratives that people often rely on false assumptions about one another. The reader gains insight that the characters may not. I like her understated, meditative look into the innermost working of these people's lives.
    • 4/5
      This was acomplicated, rich story of a playrights play about her emotions surrounding her lovers death ion 9/11. The other main characters are related through the play & her lovers family. I found myself disturbed by the story, but was drawn back to it. A very good read.
    • 4/5
      There's a lot to reflect on in this very mature novel. I wonder if the author/publisher considered inserting the entire playscript for "The Lake Shore Limited"? I think that would have been cool.
    • 4/5
      I like Sue Miller very much! The characters in her stories are well fleshed out and completely believable as people. The theme of this story, painful loss and how people choose to deal with it is searing. The way we see a situation, our own situation, how we privately think about it both as it is happening and in retrospect, how all these elements balance often on chance, we see through the eyes of the four main characters. This is a story about people, flawed and very human. If you need more action in a story then you should look elsewhere. Sue Miller has a talent for making the characters that inhabit her stories as real as anyone you might know, yet she allows you the privilege of hearing their most intimate thoughts which adds unmeasurable depth to her stories, to this story! You have only to listen and observe and learn from their experience. This is a solemn look into the reactions of four people who's lives overlap during the production of a play "The Lake Shore Limited". If you are patient, reflective, there is much insight to be taken from this lovely story!
    • 4/5
      Reviews so far of this book have on the whole not been favourable but I would like to express a different view. If you a looking for a book where a lot happens, a fast paced story this is not for you. This is more a character study of a group of people and I enjoyed it very much.Four individuals tell this story. They are brought together by a two act play called The Lakeshore Limited. In this play the main character Rafe learns there has been a terrorist bomb on a train that his wife was a passenger on and he does not know whether she has survived. To make matters worse he was thinking of leaving her for another woman prior to the bombing. The other three characters are all dealing with a sense of loss, grief and guilt due to something that has happened in the past or is happening now in their lives, whether it be the terminal illness of their marriage partner, a grieving sister who can't let go after the death of her brother, or a lonley man who has raised three children on his own after the death from cancer of his wife. The play hits home to all of the characters in a different way. The playwrite herself lost her partner in the 9/11 bombing but she too was thinking of leaving him before he died. For her writing the play was a way of trying to work through her own feelings.The novel reveals the past, and present lives of these characters trying to come to terms with what has happened to them, and asks readers to question what is the proper way to act in these situations. Many emotions rise to the surface guilt, loss, fear,and anger for a start. The characters face a struggle beween acting in the way that the world expects of them and being true to themselves and their own feelings. It explores the questions most of us are afraid to ask, and the feelings we are afraid to admit to, how sometimes we just want a different life when things get too hard, we just want to escape. So, A good read for me, with believabale characters, facing real issues.Not a happy book i guess but a lot of food for thought.
    • 2/5
      In Sue Miller's the Lakeshore Limited, not a lot happens. Instead we get character's that are so convincingly difficult that it becomes tough going for the reader to find anything redemptive about them. Basically a group of spoiled adults surrounding a play hurt each other. The roundabout and jerky narration, absent plot and humor, wisdom, doesn't help matters. Though Miller's use of language is at times striking, I still struggled to finish this one.
    • 1/5
      What an awful waste of time. I enjoyed "The Senator's Wife" so much; I guess my hopes were too high for this one. It was meandering, self-absorbed and boring. I found myself skimming the last few sections. I did not like one single character. None!! Well, maybe the dog, Rueben. He was the only character who wasn't dithering about his loves, sexual hits (and misses) and mournful what-ifs.