Two novellas about the deep connections we forge with the people we love, and the pain of breaking those connections. In Honour, Kathleen and Frank are amicably separated, in contact through shared parenting of their young daughter, Flo. But when Frank finds a new partner and wants a divorce, Kathleen is hurt. And Flo can’t understand why they all can’t live together. In Other People’s Children, Ruth and Scotty live in a big share house that’s breaking up. Scotty is trying to hold on, remembering the early days of telling life stories and laughter and singing—and when the kids were everyone’s kids. But now the bitterness has crept in and their friendship is broken. Ruth is ready to move on—and she’ll take her kids with her. Helen Garner writes novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-fiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, and in 2016 she won the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction and the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award. Her book of essays Everywhere I Look won the 2017 Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction. ‘Garner is scrupulous, painstaking, and detailed, with sharp eyes and ears. She is everywhere at once, watching and listening, a recording angel at life’s secular apocalypses…her unillusioned eye makes her clarity compulsive.’ James Wood, New Yorker ‘She drills into experience and comes up with such clean, precise distillations of life, once you read them they enter into you. Successive generations of writers have felt the keen influence of her work and for this reason Garner has become part of us all.’ Weekend Australian ‘Helen Garner’s collections of fiction and non-fiction corroborate her reputation as a great stylist and a great witness.’ Peter Craven, Australian
Author
Helen Garner was born in Geelong in 1942. She has published many works of fiction including Monkey Grip, Cosmo Cosmolino and The Children's Bach. Her fiction has won numerous awards. She is also one of Australia's most respected non-fiction writers, and received a Walkley Award for journalism in 1993. Her most recent books are The First Stone, True Stories, My Hard Heart, The Feel of Stone and Joe Cinque's Consolation. In 2006 she won the Melbourne Prize for Literature. She lives in Melbourne. Praise for Helen Garner's work 'Helen Garner is an extraordinarily good writer. There is not a paragraph, let alone a page, where she does not compel your attention.' Bulletin 'She is outstanding in the accuracy of her observations, the intensity of passion...her radar-sure humour.' Washington Post 'Garner has always had a mimic's ear for dialogue and an eye for unconscious symbolism, the clothes and gestures with which we give ourselves away.' Peter Craven, Australian 'Helen Garner writes the best sentences in Australia.' Ed Campion, Bulletin
