The Passage of Love

Starred review from July 1, 2018
An old writer looks back at the formative moments and people of his early years in this thoughtful autobiographical work by an award-winning Australian novelist.The fictional writer, Robert Crofts, is 79 and hasn't been working on a book since his last came out, "now more than two years ago," when he recalls his fascination as a boy in postwar England with the Australian Outback. From this first-person prelude, Miller (The Simplest Words, 2016, etc.) shifts into third and introduces Crofts at age 19, just as he has quit three years of cowboy work "in the vast hinterland of the Australian north." Crofts--who was Miller's alter ego in his first published novel, Watching the Climbers on the Mountain (1988)--meets a woman who encourages him to write and a man who faults his prose and urges him to learn from great literature by attending university. Conflicting demands that can throttle creativity will be a big motif in this bildungsroman. Under the influence of his wife, Crofts will shift households several times, abandoning one novel, ending up on a remote farm where he enjoys the outdoor labor but suffers from writer's block. Then his wife leaves to study Italian in Perugia and suffers a breakdown. Along the way, he meets a fascinating European couple in Melbourne who survived torture and imprisonment in wartime Germany. They deliver some fine ruminations on art and commitment in a novel that also traces those themes through a crucial pregnancy and Crofts' relationships with three women. Miller's writing sometimes drifts toward the saccharine, but he almost always pulls back--as he pulls back from the narrative several times in interludes that return to the first person of the much older man and highlight how memory has many layers.A rich addition to the growing shelf of autofiction from a seasoned storyteller.

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August 30, 2017
The Passage of Love is a slow-burning, fictional recasting of dual Miles Franklin Award-winning novelist Alex Miller’s life, told through the often lost and solitary life of Robert Crofts, an aspiring author who struggles to find the right path to achieve his dreams. After leaving England for Australia in the wake of World War II, Robert is greatly inspired by a young Indigenous man, Frankie, with whom he works as a stockman. Later, after arriving penniless and adrift in Melbourne, a passionate encounter with an older woman leads him to attempt to tell Frankie’s story. This sets Robert on a course to meet the many great influencers in his life, and also to his tumultuous, tortured relationship with his first wife Lena and his struggle to produce his first novel. At several points in the novel I was reminded of Albert Camus’ The Outsider—with its minimalistic use of language, which makes the storytelling efficient. It was satisfying when Miller later referenced Camus several times. In places the story becomes slightly cumbersome and it is difficult to pinpoint how much time has passed. However, Miller maintains a tangible sense of place throughout, in particular, the landscape of isolated country NSW. This novel is a must for fans of Miller’s many other novels, as well as those who enjoyed The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover. The Passage of Love offers an insight into a great writer’s journey. Kate Frawley is a bookseller and the manager of the Sun Bookshop