The World Below - Hardcover

After being diagnosed at nineteen with tuberculosis in 1919, a young woman is sent to a sanitarium, where she rediscovers the pleasures of unfettered youth and falls in love with a doomed man. 200,000 first printing.

Sue Miller was born in Chicago in 1943, the second of four children in an academic and ecclesiastical family. She grew up reading, writing, and dancing to 50's rhythm and blues in Hyde Park, and went to college at Harvard. She was married at twenty, shortly after she graduated, and held a series of odd jobs until her son Ben was born in 1968. She separated from her first husband in 1971, and for thirteen years was a single parent in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working in day care, taking in roomers, studying the piano, and writing with increasing focus.

Sue Miller’s first story was published in 1981. Since then, she has taught in various writing programs in the Boston area. In 1983-84 Sue Miller had a Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe, which led her to the publication of her first novel, The Good Mother. She finished the novel in 1985, it was published 1986, and was quickly followed by a collection of short stories. In the 90’s she published Family Pictures, For Love, The Distinguished Guest, and While I Was Gone. She is currently writing a memoir about her father’s death from Alzheimer’s disease.

Sue Miller was married in 1985 to the writer Douglas Bauer. They are now divorced. After living in Boston for 12 years, Sue Miller returned this spring to Cambridge, which she refers to as the land of many bookstores.