by Sue Miller
First published 2010
Billy Gertz stands barely as tall as a child, but her fierce independence drives her theatrical work. She has written a play called The Lake Shore Limited about a fictional terrorist bombing of the famous train as it arrives at Union Station in Chicago. The play follows a man waiting to learn if his estranged wife survived the attack. Billy drew from her own experience on September 11th, when she waited to discover whether her lover Gus had boarded one of the hijacked planes. Her play brings together three other people whose lives connect across the snowy Vermont woods and rain-soaked Boston streets. Leslie, Gus's sister, still carries grief years after losing her brother. Rafe, an actor, delivers his greatest performance in Billy's play after a night of passionate intimacy. Sam watches the performance and finds himself drawn to Billy, recognizing the conflicts and mixed feelings her work reveals. The novel traces how Billy transforms her raw emotions into theater, how the actors recreate her vision on stage, and how that performance touches and alters each character's life.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Boston, Chicago, Union Station, Vermont
Period: September 11th
270 pages · Hardcover · Knopf