Award-winning local author, Alex Miller, has launched a new novel exploring sexuality, self-exploration, friendship and marriage in a modern world.
A Brief Affair centres around protagonist Dr Frances Egan, a 42-year-old mother and career woman who discovers a long-forgotten diary while working in a former asylum in Sunbury.
The characters and many of their experiences are written through the lens of the author’s own thoughts, feelings and experiences, and those of the people close to him.
Miller has an exceptional ability to write female characters seamlessly, which seems to stem from his belief that women and men are essentially the same.
“I read Sexual Politics by (American writer and activist) Kate Millett, written in 1969. It was profound, well-researched and argued,” he said.
“It gave me, as a man, permission to write women.
“I also lean towards the person who doesn’t get a say, which I think is my story too, coming from a working-class family in London. I can’t write about people I don’t like. I’ve tried.”
Raised in the UK by parents of Scottish and Irish descent, Miller travelled to Australia on his own when he was just 16 years old.
A working-class boy from South London during the post-war period, he wanted to be a writer but was never taken seriously.
After a six-week-long boat journey, Miller landed in Sydney. Suitcase in hand he started walking, asking people passing by, “which way to Queensland?”
“It was so different to England. I felt liberated,” he said.
“I wanted to be a cowboy in the outback. So that’s what I did. I worked with Indigenous people in Augusta on the Gulf of Carpentaria. That was special.”
Miller and his wife Stephanie have called Castlemaine their home for the past 22 years. They met when they were studying.
“The first day I saw her at the top of the stairs, I thought that’s the one. Turns out she thought the same,” he said.
“During the term we kept giving each other looks, but we never spoke. One night at the end of term we both decided to go to the pub with a group of students.
“At the end of the night, I said, ‘aren’t you cold sitting on your own? Why don’t you come over?’ She came over and kissed me. It went on for a lifetime. Everyone in the bar started slow clapping and the barmaid poured cold water on us.
“She was the one. Steph makes life possible.”
A Brief Affair is available now in all good book stores.