Review - Conditions of Faith, Alex Miller

Once again, I won a copy of this book from the publisher, Allen & Unwin this time. Once again, it's a good'un. From the first page, the writing is lyrical as Miller weaves the story of Emily, a young Australian woman, her life in 1920s Sydney, Paris and Tunisia, and her struggles with family expectations, societal conformity, professional ambition and the duties of a convential marriage. Emily's father wants her to pursue an academic career following her First in history. On a whim, however, she marries Georges - a driven engineer, a man whose purpose in life is to design the biggest bridge in the world - and travels with him to Paris. Quickly bored by the confines of married life, she makes a disastrous mistake. Yet that misjudgement takes her to Carthage, where she is able to rediscover herself, her own academic ambitions and the need to make a life of her own.
Ultimately, however, she finds that there can be no success without sacrifice, particularly for a woman of her times.

It was only in the course of writing this review that I realised that the author is male - if there was any biographical information in my copy, I clearly missed it! I am now all the more impressed by his sensitive portrayal of Emily, her emotional journey and the choices she has to make. I also loved the descriptions of the landscapes of Sydney and Carthage and found the characterisation generally very strong. This is a piece of writing that stays with you.

I found the story slow going at first - the intrusion of Christmas into my reading might not have helped with that - but in the later stages I was definitely hooked. I would thoroughly recommend this book and will look out for others by the same author.