Lauded author to talk on new tome

FICTION fans will have the opportunity to get up close and personal with double Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning author Alex Miller next week.

Miller will make a special appearance at Bendigo Library to discuss his new novel, A Brief Affair, on Thursday, 23 February from 5.30pm with host Prue Mansfield.

A Brief Affair is his 13th novel and is set in Central Victoria, close to Newstead and Castlemaine, where he and his wife have lived for the past 23 years.

“It began as an idea for a ghost story and gradually transformed into the story of Frances Egan, a university lecturer, mother and happily married woman whose attitude to life is changed when she has a one-night stand with a Chinese professor during a visit to an academic conference in Hefei in eastern China,” Miller said.

“The title refers to something that Valerie, who is Frances’ new friend and a woman of 86 says.

“Life, Valerie says, is such a brief affair. This is the view from the final years, when early memories and events in our lives return to haunt us.

“The evening event will be an in-conversation for 45 mins, then a brief question time.

“I may do a short reading from the book and will probably speak about the more intimate ways in which my own experiences, sometimes hilarious, often find their way into my books, and even inspire my initial ideas for stories.”

The new novel can be purchased locally at independent bookshop Bookish on the corner of Pennyweight Lane and Hargreaves Street and has been distributed throughout Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin.

Alex Miller: A Brief Affair takes place on Thursday, 23 February between 5.30 and 6.30pm at Bendigo Library.

For more information visit bit.ly/3E1DJvC.