Book Review: The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller

I finished reading The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller today and I must say I greatly enjoyed the read. This was a book that goes back and forth from Pippa as a child and as a young wild woman to a married woman at the age of 50, but not jarringly so.

Pippa grows up as one of 5 children, and the only girl, to a reverand and her mother Suki. She finds herself having a difficult relationship with her mother, watching her pop pills and severely restricting her diet in order to control her weight.  Eventually, she finds herself alienated from the mother that she craves affection from and finds her behaviors revolting at the same time. Pippa runs away from home, after getting caught having an affair with a teacher,  first to her lesbian aunt and her live in "roommate" as her aunt initially refers her lover as to young impressionable Pippa. But fairly quickly, she finds herself making a porn of sorts with Kat and going to adult places where the people are doing submissive-chain sex acts. But eventually she runs away from her Aunt Trish and lives with a painter friend of theirs, and finds herself becoming addicted to drugs amist the New York art scene.  She then gets invited to a party and meets Herb, who changes her life.

In spite of all the wild sexual experiences that Pippa goes through, I find myself liking her very much and cheering her on as she grows and matures as a person. It was so sad that her relationship with her mother was so needlessly frought with tension and rejection, that she craved her love from other people. I thought this to be a very engrossing read, and Pippa, while flawed and made some bad choices, winds up being very sympathetic.  Ms. Miller is the daughter of famed author Arthur Miller, whom many of us read his works in high school.  I highly recommend this novel, not for her parentage, but for the fun read that it is.