Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is the study of a brave, curious, multilayered woman--an acutely intelligent portrait of the many lives behind a single name. Now a major motion picture.
What part of our selves do we hide away in order to create a stable, successful adult life?
Pippa Lee has just such a life in place at age fifty, when her older husband, a retired publisher, decides they should move to a retirement community outside New York City. Pippa is suddenly deprived of the stimulation and distraction that had held everything in place. She begins losing track of her own mind; her foundations start to shudder, and gradually we learn the truth of the young life that led her finally to settle down in marriage--years of neglect and rebellion, wild transgressions and powerful defiance.
"Dreamy, elegant . . . Miller's astute, beautifully nuanced novel explores the unpredictable consequences of choosing to live a safe but emotionally compromised life." --Daily Mail (UK)
"Magnificent . . . Miller's depiction of her title character's tangled universe is so nuanced, so lovingly detailed, that it's impossible not to get drawn in." --Nylon
"Miller beautifully renders an American woman's grab and grab again at happiness." --The Believer
"Strikingly unconventional." --Elle
"Miller brings a simmering intelligence and verbal flair to this deft exploration of the courage required to own your own life." --Booklist
"Poignant and intriguing." --Daily Express (UK)
"All these stories are as perfect as the form itself allows--surprising, grotesque, inspiring. . . . [Miller is] a wonderful writer." --The Washington Post Book World on Personal Velocity
"[Personal Velocity] is eye-opening . . . always humane, always honest, and always entertaining." --Los Angeles Times Book Review on Personal Velocity