Seeking shelter in a Parisian cafe from a sudden rainstorm, John Patterner meets the exotic Sabiha and his carefully mapped life changes forever. Resonant of the bestselling Conditions of Faith, Alex Miller’s keenly awaited new novel tells the deeply moving story of their lives together, and of how each came undone by desire. Strangers did not, as a rule, fi nd their way to Chez Dom, a small, rundown Tunisian cafe on Paris’ distant fringes. Run by the widow Houria and her young niece, Sabiha, the cafe offers a home away from home for the North African immigrant workers working at the great abattoirs of Vaugiraud, who, like them, had grown used to the smell of blood in the air. But when one day a lost Australian tourist, John Patterner, seeks shelter in the cafe from a sudden Parisian rainstorm, a tragic love story begins to unfold. Years later, while living a quiet life in suburban Melbourne, John is haunted by what happened to him and Sabiha at Vaugiraud. He confides his story to Ken, an ageing writer, who sees in John’s account the possibility for one last simple love story. When Ken tells his daughter this she reminds him ‘Love is never simple, Dad. You should know that.’He does know it. But being the writer he is, he cannot resist the lure of the story. Told with all Miller’s distinctive clarity, intelligence and compassion, Lovesong is a pitch-perfect novel, a tender and enthralling story about the intimate lives of ordinary people. Like the truly great novelist he is, Miller locates the heart of his story in the moral frailties and secret passions of his all-too-human characters.