About the book

“This thoughtful autobiographical work by an award-winning Australian novelist” chronicles a young author’s adventuresome coming of age (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In this epic yet intimate autobiographical novel, acclaimed Australian author Alex Miller returns to his fictional alter ego Robert Crofts, the subject of his debut work, Watching the Climbers on the Mountain. To flee his abusive father in the years after World War II, sixteen-year-old Robert leaves his childhood home in London for the Australian Outback. After a sojourn there, Robert moves to cosmopolitan Melbourne where he meets Lena Soren, the woman who becomes the true center of his life. As their intimacy deepens, Lena struggles to free herself from the familial demands and social norms that suffocate her. Very much in love, Robert follows Lena to the end of the earth and back again as their relationship nourishes both his artistic aspirations and her ever stronger sense of self. The Passage of Love is the story of a young man discovering his calling, a young woman pursuing her own destiny, and a modern country struggling to define itself through shifting mores.