Kilbourn Public Library Book Club

The Kilbourn Public Library Book Discussion Group is reading Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen for the January 2018 book selection.  For generations the Millers have lived in Miller's Valley.  Mimi Miller tells about her life with intimacy and honesty.  As Mimi eavesdrops on her parents and quietly observes the people around her, she discovers more and more about the toxicity of family secrets, the dangers of gossip, the flaws of marriage, the inequalities of friendship and the risks of passion, loyalty, and love.  Home, as Mimi begins to realize, can be "a place where it's just as easy to feel lost as it is to feel content."

Miller's Valley is a masterly study of family, memory, loss, and, ultimately, discovery, of finding true identity and a new vision of home.  As Mimi says, "No one ever leaves the town where they grew up, even if they go."  Miller's Valley reminds us that the place where you grew up can disappear, and the people in it too, but all will live on in your heart forever.  (From the publisher.)

How would you describe Mimi as the book opens, and how does she change over the course of the novel?  What does she come to learn, as she matures, about place and home?

Why is Mimi so tied to the valley? Is her reluctance merely a childish fear to move beyond a familiar world?  Or is it something else?

The book asks an important question about how closely our identities are tied to our origins, both place and family.  Do we change when we adapt to new experiences and when we lose what we treasure?  Do we ever really leave the past behind us?

Let us know what you think!