Review of Trove: A woman's search for truth and buried treasure

It’s human nature to find yourself in middle age, maybe married with a mortgage and kids, wondering if there might be more to life. How do you scratch that itch and explore those parts of yourself without disrupting or destroying what you already have with someone else? In other words, how much would you be willing to risk in your own relationship to find that part of yourself you’ve always been searching for?

“Think of it as an Eat, Pray, Love for the middle-aged married woman who doesn’t have time to eat her way through Italy or find spiritual inspiration in an Indian ashram.”

You also might look back at your youth in the rearview mirror while bracing for what’s to come in your golden years and wonder if there was perhaps more you could have done? Are there relationships in your life that failed or fell apart because you misunderstood each other? 

These are the questions Sandra Miller tackles in her memoir, Trove, and she does it brilliantly with beautiful prose, earnest vulnerability and laugh-out-loud humor that engages her readers and takes them along on her life journey to connect to the basic human need for self-fulfillment.

For anyone who has ever had a dream or a longing or unfulfilled desire, Trove is a treasure. Think of it as an Eat, Pray, Love for the middle-aged married woman who doesn’t have time to eat her way through Italy or find spiritual inspiration in an Indian ashram. Much like Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling book-turned-Hollywood-movie, Miller’s memoir reads like a can’t-put-it-down, page-turning novel. You will devour each chapter, eagerly following her treasure hunt adventure and ultimately follow the journey of her soul’s longing.

Ever since she was a little girl, Miller began searching for treasure—missing pieces of herself through found objects—which she kept in a trove to help her connect to a yearning for something deeper in herself and explore her own self-worth in a home that didn’t value her. Throughout her adult life, she struggles when her father is deceased and her mother is unwilling to connect with her or her family in a meaningful way. Miller describes “the sadness that had been building for years just ambushed me, insisting that I acknowledge it.”

Thus begins the writer’s quest for real buried treasure: YouTube videos reveal clues to the location of a chest filled with 10,000 gold Sacagawea dollars buried several states over from her home. A real, X-marks-the-spot treasure map for the digital age, the quest fuels her desire to unearth the treasure, and it’s also the perfect metaphor for finding what she has lost in her unhappy childhood. 

Miller’s desire to unearth the treasure had less to do with finding the money and more to do with connecting to past explorers who searched for something bigger than themselves. More importantly, she was determined to discover the treasure hidden within herself that was inexplicably buried so deeply she couldn’t find it for trying. When she decides to participate in this armchair treasure hunt while taking on the task of caring for her aging mother and raising a young family, the dubious logistics and the question of whether such a quest will actually come to fruition challenges the very boundaries of her marriage. Ultimately, she has to make a choice whether to follow her heart’s yearning or bury it even deeper within herself.

“I want to make people more compassionate for their own journeys of exploration and searching. I want people to read this and consider how they can go on their own treasure hunt for something they've always wanted to find. And I really want people to understand that midlife longing doesn't have to be a bad thing, but can ultimately be fulfilling, and can even strengthen a relationship. I think questing is a basic human need that often goes unfulfilled…longing and dreams go hand-in-hand. When book clubs pick this up, I want them to use it as a springboard for talking about their own lives, longing, dreams, and quests,” Miller says.

Trove is available on Amazon and Goodreads, and at most booksellers nationwide.