Andrew Miller's first two novels, Ingenious Pain (1997) and Casanova (1998), were extended fantasies set in an imaginatively embellished 18th century. In his third novel, Oxygen (2001), Miller cast off the breeches and capes to write about a mother suffering from terminal cancer whose sons go to her house in the country to help nurse her. His new novel, The Optimists, describes a war-traumatised contemporary journalist who leaves the city to nurse his mentally ill sister in the countryside.

LRB 3 March 2005 | PDF Download