Helen Garner – författare

'There are very few writers that I admire more than Helen Garner'DAVID NICHOLLS 'The greatest, richest journals by a writer since Virginia Woolf's'RACHEL COOKE, OBSERVER'Marvellous, all eight hundred pages of it'COLM TÓIBÍN'The great Australian writer's masterpiece'THE TIMESHelen Garner has kept a diary for most of her adult life. Now she is widely recognised as one of the greatest writers of our age. But, of all her books, it is her diaries that she likes best. Collected for the first time into one volume, these inimitable diaries show Garner like never before: as a fledging author in bohemian Melbourne, publishing her lightning-rod debut novel while raising a young daughter in the 1970s; in the throes of an all-consuming love affair in the 1980s; and clinging to a disintegrating marriage in the 1990s.How to End a Story reveals the inner life of a woman in love, a mother, a friend and a formidable writer at work. Told with devastating honesty, steel-sharp wit and an ecstatic attention to the details of everyday life, it offers all the satisfactions of a novel alongside the enthralling intimacy of something written in private and just for pleasure.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LESLIE JAMISON'Acute, rigorous, pitch-perfect'NIGELLA LAWSON'With sharp eyes and ears, Garner is a recording angel at life's secular apocalypses' JAMES WOOD, NEW YORKER'Dazzling, fearless greatness. I could not recommend this book more'INDIA KNIGHT'An acclaimed celebrator of the poetic quotidian'ANNE ENRIGHT

'Seductive as hell. Brilliant, unusual, breathtaking' LAUREN GROFF'Languid, beautiful' ANOTHER MAGAZINE'Its pages radiate sex and heat, chlorine and rock'n'roll' MADELAINE LUCASIn 1970s Melbourne, Nora is a happy woman. She is happy moving between the city's communal households, with her little daughter. Happy with days spent at the public pool, and nights spent dancing and drinking and talking and smoking and loving freely. But then Nora meets Javo. Javo, with his crooked, wrecked, wild face and his violently blue eyes. And soon she is trapped in the monkey grip of his drug addiction and her own obsessive love for him. On its first publication in 1977, Monkey Grip was both a sensation and a lightning rod due to its frank portrayal of the lives of Garner's generation. Now a modern classic, it introduces us to Helen Garner's dazzling and radical literary voice. A W&N Essential with an introduction by Lauren Groff

Helen Garner visits the morgue, and goes cruising on a Russian ship. She sees women giving birth, and gets the sack for teaching her students about sex. She attends a school dance and a gun show. She writes about dreaming, about turning fifty, and the storm caused by her book The First Stone. True Stories collects Helen Garner's short non-fiction written over a period of almost fifty years. In this marvellous book are her most famous essays about family, about love and death and sex, about growing up and growing old, about birth and marriage and separation, about travel and staying home. Garner's command of the form, her honesty, humility and humour, her instinct for the right word and the shape of a sentence reveal themselves in essay after essay.

Dua Lipa's Book Club Pick for August 2025One of the Guardian's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century 'A true-crime classic and literary masterpiece' ANNE ENRIGHT'Bears comparison with In Cold Blood' KATE ATKINSON'It grabbed me by the throat' GILLIAN ANDERSON'Sharp and forensic' DUA LIPAFather's Day, 2005. Just after nightfall, a discarded husband was driving his three young sons back to their mother's house. On that dark country road, barely five minutes from home, the old white car swerved off the highway and plunged into a dam. The father freed himself and swam to the bank, but the car sank to the bottom, and all the children drowned. The court case that followed became Helen Garner's obsession, one that would take over her life until its final verdict. The resulting book, This House of Grief, is a true crime classic and literary masterpiece, which examines just what we are capable of and how fiercely we hide it from ourselves.A W&N Essential with an introduction by Rachel Cooke

'A jewel of a novel about a perfect family falling apart' DAVID NICHOLLS'A slim, deeply humane work that tingles with life' THE TIMES'One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century' MERVE EMREAthena and Dexter Fox are content. They love each other. They are friends.They live with their two young sons in a sparsely furnished house near the Merri Creek: its walls cracking, its floors sloping and its doors hanging loosely in their frames. There is a piano in their kitchen.But then, Dexter runs into Elizabeth, an old friend from his university days. She brings into his world her loose-living musician boyfriend, Philip, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Vicki.And all at once, the bonds that hold the Fox family together begin to fray. Since its first publication in 1984, The Children's Bach has been hailed as one of only four perfect short novels in the English language, one of the greatest family novels ever written and Garner's masterpiece. A W&N Essential with an introduction by David Nicholls

This volume of collected short fiction gathers and celebrates the work of one of Australia's most loved authors.These stories that delve into the complexities of love and longing, of the pain, darkness and joy of life - are all told with her characteristic sharpness of observation, honesty and humour. Each one a perfect piece, together they showcase Garner's mastery of the form.A W&N Essential

I'm trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we spend together before he turns into a man and I die.It's footy season in Melbourne, and Helen Garner is following her grandson's under-16s team. She not only goes to every game (give or take), but to every training session too, shivering on the sidelines at dusk, fascinated by the spectacle.She's a passionate Western Bulldogs fan with an imperfect grasp of the rules, who loves the epic theatre of AFL football. But her devotion to the under-16s offers her something else. This is her chance to connect with her youngest grandchild, to be close to him before he rushes headlong into manhood. To witness his triumphs and defeats, to fear for his safety in battle, to gasp and to cheer for his team as it fights for a place in the finals.With her sharp eye, generous wit and warm humour, Garner documents this pivotal moment, both as part of the story and as silent witness. The Season is an unexpected and exuberant book: a celebration of the nobility, grace and grit of team spirit, a reflection on the nature of masculinity, and a tribute to the game's power to thrill us.

I'm trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we spend together before he turns into a man and I die.It's footy season in Melbourne, and Helen Garner is following her grandson's under-16s team. She not only goes to every game (give or take), but to every training session too, shivering on the sidelines at dusk, fascinated by the spectacle.She's a passionate Western Bulldogs fan with an imperfect grasp of the rules, who loves the epic theatre of AFL football. But her devotion to the under-16s offers her something else. This is her chance to connect with her youngest grandchild, to be close to him before he rushes headlong into manhood. To witness his triumphs and defeats, to fear for his safety in battle, to gasp and to cheer for his team as it fights for a place in the finals.With her sharp eye, generous wit and warm humour, Garner documents this pivotal moment, both as part of the story and as silent witness. The Season is an unexpected and exuberant book: a celebration of the nobility, grace and grit of team spirit, a reflection on the nature of masculinity, and a tribute to the game's power to thrill us.

In July 2023, in a quiet Australian country town, Erin Patterson - stay-at-home mother and true crime devotee - invited her husband's devoutly Christian family to lunch. Within days, three of her guests were dead and the fourth was in a coma. They had all been poisoned by death cap mushrooms. Two years later, Patterson stood trial, accused of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The court case gripped the nation and fascinated people all over the world. Among those drawn into the drama were three renowned Australian writers: Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. Together, they joined the daily media scrum at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts and spent long days immersed in the case's sinister and complex themes: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, marriage, money, mycology and murder. The Mushroom Tapes is a true crime book like no other - a uniquely enlightening study of Erin Patterson and our collective obsession with her strange and terrible crime.

In July 2023, in a quiet Australian country town, Erin Patterson - stay-at-home mother and true crime devotee - invited her husband's devoutly Christian family to lunch. Within days, three of her guests were dead and the fourth was in a coma. They had all been poisoned by death cap mushrooms. Two years later, Patterson stood trial, accused of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The court case gripped the nation and fascinated people all over the world. Among those drawn into the drama were three renowned Australian writers: Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. Together, they joined the daily media scrum at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts and spent long days immersed in the case's sinister and complex themes: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, marriage, money, mycology and murder. The Mushroom Tapes is a true crime book like no other - a uniquely enlightening study of Erin Patterson and our collective obsession with her strange and terrible crime.

In the autumn of 1992, two young women students at Melbourne University went to the police claiming that they had been indecently assaulted at a party. The man they accused was the head of their co-ed residential college.The controversial book that Helen Garner wrote about the resulting Ormond College sexual harassment case caused a social media storm. Prominent feminists were outraged at Garner's perceived support for the man involved, but many saw her approach a necessary and much welcome nuance towards the power dynamic between men and women. Either way, The First Stone sparked a raging debate about sexual harassment in Australia, making it easy to see why even now, thirty years on, the book is no less sharp, no less relevant and no less divisive.A W&N Essential

When Helen offers her spare room to her old friend Nicola, she has little idea of what lies ahead. Nicola has cancer and, sceptical of the medical establishment, is in the city for a course of alternative treatment. She is determined to deal with her illness in her own way, regardless of the advice that Helen can offer.In the weeks that follow, Nicola's fight against cancer will turn not only her own life upside down but the lives of everyone around her. Told with humour and honesty, this unforgettable novel charts a friendship as it is tested in the face of death.