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Silent witness

A ‘little life-hymn’ from Helen Garner
by
December 2024, no. 471

The Season by Helen Garner

Text Publishing, $34.99 pb, 189 pp

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Silent witness

A ‘little life-hymn’ from Helen Garner
by
December 2024, no. 471

Helen Garner has death on her mind. In recent decades, it has permeated her work in fascinating and unexpected ways. There is her novel The Spare Room (2008), which is about a woman’s struggles to care for a dying friend held hostage to dangerous delusions; This House of Grief (2014), a true-crime book about a devasting act of filicide; and, in her most recent volume of diaries, How to End a Story (2021), an account of the death of her marriage to the novelist Murray Bail.

The Season

The Season

by Helen Garner

Text Publishing, $34.99 pb, 189 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

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Comment (1)

  • I was startled to read here a reference to Garner’s essay ‘The Insults of Age’ (2015), and the scene in which Garner pulled the girl's ponytail. The normally moribund online comments of the journal where the essay appeared were enlivened by 70 comments of the 'You go, girl' variety'. It seems this type of resentment of youthful swaggering is not altogether rare.
    Posted by Patrick Hockey
    15 December 2024

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