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Jo Becker, a happily married middle-aged woman, finds virtually every aspect of her stability threatened when an old friend named Eli Mayhew comes to town. Eli reminds Jo of her life as a counterculture free spirit in the '60s, when the murder of her best friend--still unsolved--shattered Jo's life. Now, 30 years later, Jo finds that old issues remain, and she must make decisions that will affect not only herself but her family.

"'While I Was Gone'...gives Miller the chance to limn a '60s youth, an initially contented marriage and, eventually, a marriage struggling to regain its balance. She handles all three areas with masterly skill. It's just the connective tissue that feels contrived, in part because of weak plotting and in part because Eli, foggily characterized in both his past and his present incarnations, remains an ungraspable character."
-- Beth W. Singer

"[R]ichly detailed, ambiguous....Guilt and retribution, Miller's familiar themes, are the story's fault lines, and yet Jo's self-absorption makes its outcome less engrossing than it might be.