A Kind of Confession: The writer's private world

by Alex Miller

A deeply personal, behind-the-scenes exploration of Alex Miller's six-decade writing life.A Kind of Confession is a secret look into Alex Miller's writing life, spanning sixty years of creativity and inspiration. As a young man in 1961 Miller left his work as a ringer in Queensland and set out to achieve his dream of becoming a serious novelist. It was not until 1988 that his first novel, Watching the Climbers on the Mountain, was published. Twelve more novels would follow, all bestsellers, many published internationally.This selection from his notebooks and letters makes it exhilaratingly evident that Miller has been devoted to finding and telling stories that are profound, substantial and entertaining, stories that capture both intellect and emotion. Miller's fascinating life is told in a personal, behind-the-scenes exploration of his struggle to become a published writer, his determination, his methods of creative thought and the sources of his inspiration. His writing, sometimes in anger and despair, sometimes with humour and joy, whether created for publication or for private meditation, is alive with ideas, moral choices, commentary, encouragement, criticism and love.

Kindle Edition

Published November 28, 2023

About the author

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see: Alex Miller - Australian Fiction

see: Alex Miller - Astrology

Reviews

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Australian author Alex Miller is 87 and still writing. Even 48 years after his first piece was published he can still observe in one of his letters ‘I’m still learning so much about writing! I know nothing.’
This latest book is a collection of notebook observations, letters (and later emails) which span the early 1960s right up to 2023. The first fifty pages take us up to the year 2000, while the last hundred and thirty cover 2020 to 2023. It is a delightfully quirky view inside the mind of an author, with all the fears, inadequacies and strong passions that you might expect to find lurking.
Miller sees himself as an outsider, always has and always will. He was born in London and arrived in Australia aged 16. But even placing his birth and early life on a South London council estate fails to account for his father being a Glasgow Scot descended from the impoverished crofters forced from their homes by the English landowners. Or that his mother was Irish and also displaced by the English. The genesis of Miller’s sympathy for the indigenous Australians can be seen quite clearly. At one point, Miller observes ‘Growing up it was made clear to me by the English that I was not and never could be English.’ In one letter he wonders why he developed such a good friendship with the British Afro-Caribbean writer Caryl Philips. Their shared early life among the underclasses on London council estates provided their answer.

Miller has won the premiere Australian fiction prize, the Miles Franklin Award, twice. The same as Patrick White and Thomas Keneally. Almost more impressive is that he has been shortlisted a further five times and longlisted once. Only one of his major novels, the highly autobiographical 2017 tale The Passage of Love, is missing from the annals of the Miles Franklin.
A Kind of Confession is exactly that. It allows us a peep behind the façade of the writer with a shelf full of successful publications. It explores the insecurities and inner struggles, but also presents us a more human face. Miller delights in the friendships he makes and the things he learns from others. He shares letters with philosophers, historians, academics, readers and friends. As you might expect he is a voracious reader, frequently giving his opinions on books. The outsiders or the oppressed often feature, usually as non-fiction. His memory of reading Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day on a plane journey first involved being asked to leave the aircraft and then finding the first seat he came to, in ‘some chilly outland of a place’ in the airport, so he could finish reading.
We also see a little of the intimate, with a range of sign-offs from Aleko the Gecko to Daddy-Pooh. The weighting of the material towards more recent years allows us to see the back story to Max, a biographical work from 2020 about Miller’s early mentor and friend Max Blott. An academic who also came to Australia, Blott was a persecuted Jew who survived imprisonment and torture in Europe during the 1930s and ‘40s. The twisting tale of finding the truth about a man who would often sit in complete silence is a compelling series of chances and diligence. ‘I used to see him sitting in his chair in the sitting room of his home with his wife, Ruth, smoking one cigarette after another and gazing into space, saying nothing but thinking, so it seemed, a great deal…’ The need to write this book about Max had been a compelling force for Miller over decades, but he was still willing to present the finished work to the niece of Max that he met during his search, and ask for her permission to publish. The letters between the various parties searching for information about Max fill much of the central section of the book.
A Kind of Confession also allows us behind the scenes of the writer’s methods, the many, many drafts that appear needed, but also some of the technique:

If the reader is with the character who is undergoing various experiences and challenges, without being told if the character is happy, sad, beautiful, ugly, stupid, wise, etc. the reader will decide for themselves, one reader will say what an idiot the character is and another how intelligent, words never used by the writer who wishes to invite his or her reader into the experience to exercise their own judgement about such things. Telling is easy. The writer simply says this or that about the character. For the reader to decide for themselves there is work to be done by the author.

Miller as always has a strong tie to the working man. One of his letters describes the son of his wood merchant turning up with a delivery of firewood for the winter. He describes the young man “…nut brown, lean and wrinkled like a turtle neck” but they talk about the peculiarities of the wood he’d delivered as they stack the timber together. Miller describes the experience:

I love these rare beautiful intervals of being a young working man again with someone who is so deeply embedded in their lowly job they never stop to wonder if they are happy or fulfilled. Such people carry poetry in every word they speak and it, together with the distraction and reassurance of the physical work, give me a mighty lift and I come away knowing how fucking good life is.

This is a book for Miller fans who will undoubtedly learn something new about their favourite titles, but it also serves as a great introduction to many of Miller’s works and will easily prompt those who have yet to travel with Miller to embark on a journey through his oeuvre. His description of the ‘ancient Playgrounds of the Old People’ that he’d been taken to by Aboriginal friends, left him ‘mesmerised and shaken’, places that were ‘trembling with depth of meaning far beyond my grasp, soul shaking in their mysterious persistence.’ If that doesn’t make you want to read Journey to the Stone Country, then nothing will.

[Ann Koenig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book should appeal,to students of Miller’s literary works.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review because, being a collection of letters, the subject himself lacks the distance of being the words of another. The selection, how the known is what is excluded. and the unknown which is what his life partner chose to exclude, means any overall impression the reader gets cannot avoid subjectivity. What is missing is the man outside the obviously carefully curated content of the letters. No problem there - as a wannabe writer I always try to make all communications whether SMS or email as well written as possible too. I think it does however make the reference to being ' kind of confession' and the 'writer's private world' in the title a little disingenuous as it suggests something closer to the whole subject than it contains. But. I enjoyed it for what Miller says in the letters about how he approached each work, and the domestic details of his days. Not so much his sense of himself as Australian and his comments on Australia which at times were surprising. My takeaway is to get a fuller picture by finding a biography and reading a copy of his The Sitters that I found important as one important thing the letters revealed was not to judge his work by his The Climbers on the Mountain (which I had) which was written for reasons he is not proud, and I agree with what his letters reveal about that.

[Chris Waterford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read and loved all of Alex Miller's books but I felt this one was a step too far. A few of the more recent letters to friends were interesting but most were responding to well deserved praise for his writing. It may be just me, but I felt that this book did nothing to enhance his awesome reputation.
5.5/10