Deidre Rubenstein

For retired actor Mungo, his quiet, home village in Devon provides a perfect setting. Close by are his brother and his wife, and the rural location makes his home the ideal getaway for his dear friends in London. Among those are Kit, who comes to stay this summer, searching for some clarity on a potentially life-changing event in her personal life. They encounter Emma, a military wife renting one of the houses nearby who is also in personal turmoil...

Pru's husband has walked out, leaving her alone to contemplate her future. She's missing not so much him, but the life they once had - picnicking on the beach with small children, laughing together, nestling up like spoons in the cutlery drawer as they sleep. Now there's just a dip on one side of the bed and no-one to fill it. In a daze, Pru goes off to a friend's funeral. Usual old hymns, words of praise and a eulogy but - it doesn't sound like the...

What happens when the past and the present collide? Dominic Rose, a bachelor and teacher, has an antiquated hobby. He studies physiognomy, the art of judging somebody's character by their facial features and expressions. Living in a cottage at the edge of the woods with his frail, bedridden mother, he has spent decades pining after Clara, the love of his life, who vanished while staying with her grandparents. When Kate Winston and her family move...

Elizabeth Hunter, an ex-socialite in her 80s, has a mystical experience during a summer storm in Sydney which transforms all her relationships: her existence becomes charged with a meaning which communicates itself to those around her. From this simple scenario Patrick White unfurls a monumental exploration of the tides of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, impotence and longing that fester within family relationships. In the Sydney suburb of Centennial...