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'a narrow, vertical painting, tightly enclosing the scene. Her pale arm and her pale thigh. Viewed at a diagonal through an exceedingly tall doorway... just a glimpse of something...' An ageing portrait artist meets a woman who unsettles him, yet inspires him to paint her. Reluctantly, at first, they are drawn together. The ambiguity of the relationship between painter and subject is revealed through Alex Miller's subtle, sensuous narrative. The artist must watch and wait to trap the shy beast. For the skill of portraiture is in seeing beyond the face, beyond the likeness. 'Like Patrick White, Miller uses the painter to portray the ambivalence of art and the artist. In The Sitters is the brooding genius of light. Its presence is made manifest in Miller's supple, painterly prose which layers words into textured moments.' - The Sunday Age 'An awesomely elegant, subtly sensuous, stylish exploration of the inner self of an ageing portrait artist... If there were doubts about the maturity of Australian fiction, this book puts those doubts to rest.' - Frank Moorhouse and Sue Woolfe, 1995 NSW Premier's Awards 'The description of the creative process is extraordinary.' - The Weekend Australian Strangers did not, as a rule, find their way to Chez Dom, a small, rundown Tunisian cafe on Paris' distant fringes. Run by the widow Houria and her young niece, Sabiha, the cafe offers a home away from home for the North African immigrant workers working at the great abattoirs of Vaugiraud, who, like them, had grown used to the smell of blood in the air. But when one day a lost Australian tourist, John Patterner, seeks shelter in the cafe from a sudden Parisian rainstorm, the quiet simplicities of their lives are changed forever. John is like no-one Sabiha has met before his calm grey eyes promise her a future she was not yet even aware she wanted. Theirs becomes a contented but unlikely marriage a marriage of two cultures lived in a third and yet because they are essentially foreigners to each other, their love story sets in train an irrevocable course of tragic events. Years later, living a small, quiet life in suburban Melbourne, what happened at Vaugiraud seems like a distant, troubling dream to Sabiha and John, who confides the story behind their seemingly ordinary lives to Ken, an ageing, melancholy writer. It is a story about home and family, human frailties and passions, raising questions of morals and purpose questions have no simple answer. Lovesong is a simple enough story in many ways the story of a marriage, of people coming undone by desire, of ordinary lives and death, love and struggle but when told with Miller's distinctive voice, which is all intelligence, clarity and compassion, it has a real gravitas, it resonates and is deeply moving. Into the wonderfully evoked contemporary settings of Paris and Melbourne, memories of Tunisian family life, culture and its music are tenderly woven. An amazing book; a compulsively readable story composed by an award-winning author of brilliant, subtle, compassionate and intelligent language.With university behind her, Emily Stanton finds herself on the threshold of life. Introduced to a Scottish engineer, the exoticism of his life in Paris beckons, and she leaves her family home in twenties Melbourne to become his wife. But far from providing answers, her conventional marriage awakens in her an ardent desire to find a reason for living beyond that of simply wife and mother, a desire that leads her to flirt with risk, passion and unorthodox friendships, and carries her to Tunisia on a journey of self-questioning and intellectual reawakening.Through the lives of a rich cast of characters, Conditions of Faith compassionately and subtly explores the problem of a reason for living. This is the timeless theme of the heart of this beautiful and compelling novel.'Utterly absorbing and deeply rewarding both emotionally and intellectually.'- James Bradley'This is an amazing book. The reader can't help but offer up a prayerful thank you. that human beings still have the audacity to write like this. No paraphrase can do justice to this novel. Conditions of Faith is a blessing.'- Carolyn See, Washington Post'I think we shall see few finer or richer novels this year. a singular achievement.'- Andrew Riemer 'A narrow, vertical painting, tightly enclosing the scene. Her pale arm and her pale thigh. Viewed at a diagonal through an exceedingly tall doorway. just a glimpse of something.'

An ageing portrait artist meets a woman who unsettles him, yet inspires him to paint her. Reluctantly, at first, they are drawn together.

The ambiguity of the relationship between painter and subject is revealed through Alex Miller's subtle, sensuous narrative. The artist must watch and wait to trap the shy beast. For the skill of portraiture is in seeing beyond the face, beyond the likeness.

'Like Patrick White, Miller uses the painter to portray the ambivalence of art and the artist. In The Sitters is the brooding genius of light. Its presence is made manifest in Miller's supple, painterly prose which layers words into textured moments.' - The Sunday Age

'An awesomely elegant, subtly sensuous, stylish exploration of the inner self of an ageing portrait artist. If there were doubts about the maturity of Australian fiction, this book puts those doubts to rest.' - Frank Moorhouse and Sue Woolfe, 1995 NSW Premier's Awards

'The description of the creative process is extraordinary.' - The Weekend Australian Steven Muir, August Spiess and his daughter Gertrude, and Lang Tzu all acknowledge a restless sense of cultural displacement, an ambivalence in their relations with the culture of European Australia. Steven left England for Australia as a young man and his one attempt at returning is unsuccessful. August Spiess, although he speaks frequently of returning to his native Hamburg, fails to make the journey, as does his daughter Gertrude. Lang Tzu's very name defines his fate: two characters which in Mandarin signify the son who goes away.The'game', however, does have winners. For despite their yearnings for the home of their ancestral dreams, a desire to belong somewhere that is truly their own, none of Miller's characters leaves Australia, and each in their own way comes to see that to be at home in exile may be a defining paradox of the European Australian condition: the paradox of belonging and estrangement that perhaps lies uneasily at the heart of all European cultures. Betrayed by her husband, Annabelle Beck retreats from Melbourne to her old family home in tropical North Queensland where she meets Bo Rennie, one of the Jangga tribe. Intrigued by Bo's claim that he holds the key to her future, Annabelle sets out with him on a path of recovery that leads back to her childhood and into the Jangga's ancient heartland, where their grandparents'lives begin to yield secrets that will challenge the possibility of their happiness together. With the consummate artistry of a novelist working at the height of his powers, Miller convinces us that the stone country is not only a remote and exotic location in North Queensland, but is also an unvisited place within each of us. Journey to the Stone Country confirms Miller's reputation as one of Australia's most intelligent and uncompromising writers. Betrayed by her husband, Annabelle Beck retreats from Melbourne to her old family home in tropical North Queensland where she meets Bo Rennie, one of the Jangga tribe. Intrigued by Bo's claim that he holds the key to her future, Annabelle sets out with him on a path of recovery that leads back to her childhood and into the Jangga's ancient heartland, where their grandparents' lives begin to yield secrets that will challenge the possibility of their happiness together. With the consummate artistry of a novelist working at the height of his powers, Miller convinces us that the stone country is not only a remote and exotic location in North Queensland, but is also an unvisited place within each of us A sensuously written, peculiar novel about the relationship between a painter and his subject. A narrow, vertical painting, tightly enclosing the scene. Her pale arm and her pale thigh. Viewed at a diagonal through an exceedingly tall doorway... just a glimpse of something... An ageing portrait artist meets a woman who unsettles him, yet inspires him to paint her. Reluctantly, at first, they are drawn together. The ambiguity of the relationship between painter and subject is revealed through Alex Miller's subtle, sensuous narrative. The artist must watch and wait to trap the shy beast. For the skill of portraiture is in seeing beyond the face, beyond the likeness. Seeking shelter in a Parisian cafe from a sudden rainstorm, John Patterner meets the exotic Sabiha and his carefully mapped life changes forever. John is like no-one Sabiha has met before - his calm grey eyes promise her a future she was not yet even aware she wanted. Theirs becomes a contented but unlikely marriage - a marriage of two cultures lived in a third - and yet because they are essentially foreigners to each other, their love story sets in train an irrevocable course of tragic events ... Piecing together the puzzle of exiled artist, Lang Tzu, last of a wealthy Chinese lineage, writer Steven Muir finds himself caught in a strange and haunted landscape. Both know the solitude of the only child and the poignancy of the relationship with parents, but beneath is a twisted past. Winner of Miles Franklin Award 1993. With university behind her, Emily Stanton finds herself on the threshold of life. She leaves her home in 20s Melbourne for Paris, and marriage to a Scottish engineer. However her conventional marriage awakens in her a deep desire to find a reason for living beyond that of simply wife and mother. Emily Stanton, an intelligent and ambitious young woman of the 1920s, discovers that her struggle for personal freedom challenges society's deeply cherished beliefs about motherhood and family, in a story revealed through a fragmentary journal An ageing portrait artist meets a woman who unsettles him, yet inspires him to paint her. Reluctantly, at first, they are drawn together. The ambiguity of the relationship between painter and subject is gradually revealed Three central characters explore their family histories over the centuries and across the continents, revealing the connections they share and discovering their spiritual destinies A sensuously written, peculiarly Australian novel about the relationship between a painter and his subject. An enthralling journey into the ancestral dreams and present dilemmas of a rich cast of characters.