A powerful and perceptive novel from two-time Miles Franklin Award winner Alex Miller.
In this emotionally powerful novel, a teenage Janet travels to the Araluen Valley with her father. She dreams of a future life in the beautiful, abandoned cottage they visit there.
Twenty years later Andy moves to the valley as the new owner of the abandoned and now dilapidated cottage. All that remains from its original owner are three ancient orange trees with their dark glossy leaves and the bright orange of their fruit.
While writing his novels, Andy takes on the local mail run and with that he meets all the families along the winding road through the valley. He is witness to a changing social landscape as the people of the valley age and die, leaving the younger generation to forge a new way of life.
Told in Alex Miller's delicate prose, Into the Valley is the story of a woman's drive to fulfill her dreams. Andy and Janet are both complex characters, drawn to each other through love, love for each other and for the valley.
'In prose that is delicate and sublimely observant, Miller celebrates the sanctity of small rituals and the nobility of ordinary lives; the hidden magnitudes of passing moments. Such a balm, such an antidote.' Jock Serong, author of Cherrywood
'Into the Valley is a reminder—at a time when we so desperately need reminders—of what makes a life. This novel has everything: childhood dreams, adult realities, loneliness, love and loss. Told in the wonderfully clean and restrained prose we have to come to expect from Alex Miller, this book is a hymn to the creative life. I adored it.' Melanie Cheng, author of The Burrow
'Alex Miller is the great explorer of love in all its permutations and arrangements, and here he unfolds myriad relationships, each in their own way turning on the immense kindnesses of mutual recognition and acceptance. Follow him into this mysterious forgotten valley, through its light and scattered shade, these layers of history and generations of people.' Grace Karskens, author of People of the River
Genre: Literary Fiction
In this emotionally powerful novel, a teenage Janet travels to the Araluen Valley with her father. She dreams of a future life in the beautiful, abandoned cottage they visit there.
Twenty years later Andy moves to the valley as the new owner of the abandoned and now dilapidated cottage. All that remains from its original owner are three ancient orange trees with their dark glossy leaves and the bright orange of their fruit.
While writing his novels, Andy takes on the local mail run and with that he meets all the families along the winding road through the valley. He is witness to a changing social landscape as the people of the valley age and die, leaving the younger generation to forge a new way of life.
Told in Alex Miller's delicate prose, Into the Valley is the story of a woman's drive to fulfill her dreams. Andy and Janet are both complex characters, drawn to each other through love, love for each other and for the valley.
'In prose that is delicate and sublimely observant, Miller celebrates the sanctity of small rituals and the nobility of ordinary lives; the hidden magnitudes of passing moments. Such a balm, such an antidote.' Jock Serong, author of Cherrywood
'Into the Valley is a reminder—at a time when we so desperately need reminders—of what makes a life. This novel has everything: childhood dreams, adult realities, loneliness, love and loss. Told in the wonderfully clean and restrained prose we have to come to expect from Alex Miller, this book is a hymn to the creative life. I adored it.' Melanie Cheng, author of The Burrow
'Alex Miller is the great explorer of love in all its permutations and arrangements, and here he unfolds myriad relationships, each in their own way turning on the immense kindnesses of mutual recognition and acceptance. Follow him into this mysterious forgotten valley, through its light and scattered shade, these layers of history and generations of people.' Grace Karskens, author of People of the River
Genre: Literary Fiction