Conditions of Faith

Author(s): Alex Miller

Australian

An amazing book; a compulsively readable story composed by an award-winning author of brilliant, subtle, compassionate and intelligent language. When Alex Miller's mother died she left him her fragmentary journal from the 1920s. Inspired by her exotic tales as a young woman living in Paris and this entree into her emotional life, Miller has written Conditions of Faith. 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. Conditions of Faith is a provocative romance, but it is also an elegant and intellectually abundant meditation on a timeless dilemma. Impetuous yet entirely sympathetic, Emily Stanton, like Henry James' Isabel Archer, is in search of a reason for living in a society where motherhood is deemed reason enough. This mesmerising and thought-provoking story of dreams, obsessions and destiny will hold you in thrall.


Product Information

Winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, NSW Premier's Award 2001. Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 2001.

Winner of Melbourne Prize for Literature, Best Writing Award 2001 and NSW Premier's Literary Award Christina Stead Prize for Fiction 2001. Shortlisted for Miles Franklin Literary Award 2001.

This is an amazing book. The reader can't help but offer up a prayerful thank you: Thank you, God, that human beings still have the audacity to write like this.' - Washington Post I think we shall see few finer or richer novels this year a singular achievement.' - Andrew Reimer, Australian Book Review A truly significant addition to our literature.' - The Australian My private acid test of a literary work is whether, having read it, it lingers in my mind afterward I am still thinking about Emily.' - Colleen McCulloch

Alex Miller's latest novel, Journey to the Stone Country has won this year's Miles Franklin Award. He also won the Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Barbara Ramsden Award for best book of the year in 1993 with his third novel, The Ancestor Game (his previous novels were Watching the Climbers on the Mountain and Tivington Nott). In 1995, he published his critically acclaimed novella, The Sitters. Conditions of Faith, his fifth novel was first published in 2000 and won the Christina Stead Prize for fiction in the 2001 NSW Premiers Literary Awards. It was also nominated for the Dublin IMPAC International Literature Award and was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award in 2000, the Age Book of the Year Award and the Miles Franklin Award in 2001.

General Fields

  • : 9781865084855
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : 0.412
  • : December 2000
  • : 195mm X 131mm X 32mm
  • : Australia
  • : April 2001
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Alex Miller
  • : Paperback
  • : 1
  • : en
  • : A823.3
  • : 420
  • : Romance