'A young singer runs into the desert of gold rush Kalgoorlie; Chagall comes to Paris in the twenties; a hippie couple survey their ideals as Whitlam is deposed; a middle-aged man looks at his life after cancer on the eve of the millennium . . . Fourteen luminous stories from Joan London's award-winning collections, Sister Ships and Letter to Constantine, together with two later stories, span the twentieth century in a volume that is storytelling at its very best.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (2018 ed.).

'Based in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, during the late 19th and early 20th century, John Joseph Dwyer captured the heart of Australia's Goldfields with his photography. His outstanding images comprised street and industrial photography, as well as underground and night-time photography, taking advantage of recent innovations in artificial lighting. Dwyer's work reflected approaches and viewpoints from across the globe, the developments and innovations in photography of that time, and the amazing changes that Kalgoorlie experienced at the turn of the 20th century. This book revisits Australia's Goldfields with over 150 of Dwyer's photographs, coupled with six essays and a short story by prize-winning author, Joan London. An Everyday Transience reclaims an integral part of Western Australia's mining history that was discovered following Dwyer's death and the subsequent sale of his studio. This is the first time many of these photographs have been made accessible to the public.' (Publication summary)