It’s a rich, complex book—but in the end it’s the story of a marriage, a remarkably good one considering how mismatched this fictional husband and wife appear to be ... what a village Miller offers us here! Her great gift is how clearly she sees these all-important people of hers, even in the smallest of moments ... Without exception Miller’s minor characters spring to life with Dickensian vividness...In this way the novel builds by accretion, each character existing to shed light on the others ... But as fully peopled as the novel is, it’s Annie and Graham’s marriage that centers things, a feat all the more remarkable given that Graham dies in the first act ... may not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you’re looking for spare, show-don’t-tell narration, brisk pacing and snappy dialogue spoken by easily comprehended characters, look elsewhere. There’s a lot of very good TV that operates on these principles. Miller operates differently, and the result is an old-fashioned, slow burn of a novel that allows readers to dream deeply. But be forewarned: Miller’s generosity requires a corresponding generosity on the part of readers. Unlike her protagonist, Miller knows exactly who she is and what she wants to take pictures of. As a result those pictures are full of depth and contrast and lush detail. They need to be studied, not glanced at. They belong in an art gallery, not on Instagram.

Melodramatic ... Yet, in Miller hands, this piece of artifice becomes transformed into felt life. She's one of our most emotionally profound and nuanced writers ... a vivid cast of supporting characters, each with their own takes on Graham and Annie, help open out the novel: among them, Graham's first wife, Frieda, a teacher who never stopped loving him, as well as Graham and Annie's adult daughter, Sarah ... Monogamy is deliciously thick with such arresting psychological perceptions. As Annie struggles with her grief and postmortem shock at Graham's infidelity, Miller keeps deftly shifting what we readers might anticipate to be the ending of this novel. I may be overreaching, but the deeper I got into Monogamy, and especially when I arrived at its lyrical final pages, the more the novel made me think of the The Dead, James Joyce's short story masterpiece about a man whose sense of his marriage is radically changed by one fateful moment. Both narratives end on a snow-silenced night haunted by ghosts—ghosts who are out of reach, but still, maddeningly, messing with the living.

... unbelievably good ... Miller is excellent at conveying and illuminating the inner lives of her characters, and she remains one of the best writers at depicting the day-to-day normality of sexual desire. Events occur in this novel—normal sorts of things—and Miller’s attention, her descriptions and the tempo at which she reveals them help us feel these events truly and deeply. She has found in Monogamy probably the best expression of her longtime interest in sociograms, an exercise to demonstrate how lives intersect and influence each other. Among the relationships of the characters in Monogamy, there are reverberations upon reverberations ... How great is Monogamy? If this is not Miller’s best novel, it is surely among her very best. One measure of that is how the experience of it deepens with each reading.

Fans will not be disappointed with Monogamy, an emotionally perceptive book ... There’s a lot of explication in the novel’s early scenes, backstories that are dutifully spelled out. But Monogamy pulls you in ... This is a novel that works not through dazzling images or narrative pyrotechnics but through the steady accretion of clear-eyed observations relayed in limpid prose.

...a sophisticated, melancholy novel about an American family that some would call dysfunctional, others awkwardly recognizable and sympathetic ... Everyone in this novel hungers for love and loyalty, but no one truly achieves it. And yet after myriad struggles and revelations, those with the most attentive, loving hearts find peace ... Annie is foremost among them. Her passage from the pure grief that stems from true love, to the awful anger that comes from the knowledge of betrayal, to the peace that comes from self-understanding and forgiving a betrayal, are the trajectory of this novel ... It’s an excruciating read, and one that can feel cold and remote in the era that has unfolded after it was written. Americans are focused on COVID-19 and racial turmoil now, and a privileged white family’s struggles can feel distant ... And yet, such private sorrows occur no matter what else is going on. A salute to Sue Miller for diving into the domestic dramas that play out in many an American family.

Best-selling novelist Miller...unflinchingly examines the scorching pain of love, betrayal, raw grief, and the slow slog to forgiveness and healing. An eyes-wide-open look at the cost of commitment in all its messy permutations.

... an absorbing and meticulously crafted page-turner ... Miller dissects their union and its tragic aftermath with both deep sympathy and forensic detachment ... Miller’s subject is not just grief or marriage, though she delves profoundly into both. She’s also intrigued by the mystery of human personality, shaped by the past, but sometimes able to transcend it ... She depicts both her characters and their Cambridge environs with such tenderness and precision that many readers will feel regret when Miller’s story, like life itself, reaches its inevitable end.

... Miller interrogates the notion that sexual exclusivity is the only measure of faithfulness while deftly exploring whether the bond of a long marriage is fundamentally changed when one or both partners find intimacy elsewhere ... The shifting perspectives in the narrative feel as if Miller is changing camera angles to demonstrate how dependent truth is on what is shown to us. Her skillfulness at doing so makes a familiar plot into an original story that reflects the real-life complexity of long relationships. Monogamy demonstrates that Miller remains one of the finest cartographers of the territory of marriage.

Miller’s gift as a writer has always been finely drawn portraits of families and that talent is on full display here. We get chapters inside each character’s head, rich with details and inner monologues ... There are tenderly realized moments like that throughout the novel, as Annie learns to live without Graham, eventually picking up her camera again in an attempt to preserve memories. She never truly wants to let Graham go, as if, in the end, that’s what monogamy really means ... It’s a beautiful book for a fall afternoon during this time when family means more than ever.

Ms. Miller has shown herself to be an expert and thoroughly nonjudgmental chronicler of domesticity, its joys and discontents. She pokes under the surface of marriages, lays bare secrets and dissatisfactions, exposes the desire to find an alternative life—or a different self ... The depiction of the McFarlanes’ home life—small detail by small detail—is the most resonant, most rewarding element of Monogamy ... Nothing else in the novel quite measures up—there’s too much telling, not enough showing—until the final pages. The subject and themes feel a bit too familiar, and Annie never feels fully realized as a character. That she’s a photographer—a competent one but by no means a great one—seems, if not quite incidental to the story, not as integrated as it should be. Graham, though certainly less sympathetic—particularly when viewed through the #MeToo lens—is a far more interesting creation (though it’s a safe bet that readers could do with far fewer mentions of his penis) ... It doesn’t help matters that “Monogamy” frequently veers off in puzzling directions. A sign heralding the performance of a celebrated cellist who was Annie’s childhood best friend sets off such a flight of recollections it seems certain that the musician is going to put in an appearance in the story. There’s no such payoff. Disquisitions on Sarah’s romance, on Frieda’s uneasy relationship with her French daughter-in-law, and on Lucas’s failure to bond with his infant daughter feel similarly aimless. A deus ex machina intervention involving a neighbor is just flat-out dopey ... Ms. Miller knows her milieu, and there are some piercingly affecting moments here, but readers who wish for more may feel a bit cheated by Monogamy.

Miller...delivers a robust, character-driven examination of the inner workings of a lengthy marriage ... The novel takes on various configurations, swelling with recovered memories of childhood experiences and crackling with revelations of seductive temptations at an artist’s colony ... The novel is grounded by vibrant prose, vividly portrayed secondary characters, and the resiliency of everlasting love. Miller’s fans will devour this spectacular, powerful return.

This death happens fairly early in the book, but since the reader knows about the affair and Annie does not, the first two-thirds of Miller’s 13th novel are infused with a merry narrative tension. That energy dissipates somewhat when Annie eventually finds out about Graham's infidelity. At this point the novel becomes more meditative, sticking close to Annie as she deals with the disorienting feeling that she never really knew the man she deeply loved ... Miller’s skill at depicting the intricacies of marriage, parenting, and domestic life, the atmosphere of the independent bookstore, and the pleasures of flowers, wine, and food...makes this book charming and inviting in a way that is somewhat at odds with its sorrowful impetus ... A thoughtful and realistic portrait of those golden people who seem to have such enviable lives.