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A chance meeting with a woman she hasn't seen for decades – the woman whose marriage she destroyed – has prompted the 85-year-old narrator of this impressive Australian novel to revisit the defining moments of her life before she dies. Inspired by a real incident from the life of the Australian painter Sidney Nolan, Autumn Laing puts its small cast of characters under intense emotional pressure – and the intense gaze of a master observer. Miller's ability to probe the dark, sticky underparts of human interaction and produce intricate, elegant prose out of what he finds there, makes him a pretty special proposition. Surprisingly, he remains a mostly unknown quantity on this side of the world, which is probably why his publisher has decided to release three further paperback helpings of his fiction this year, in the shape of The Tivington Nott , Prochownik's Dream and The Sitters .
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