This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial

About this book

Finalist 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Two books in one: an expertly reported brilliantly written story and woven into that Garners meditation on the meaning of that story.Head Butler The Joan Didion of Australia writes a masterful book about a real-life family tragedy....Her voice intimate yet sharp wry yet urgent inspires trust as she pursues a twice-told tale that reveals an unsettling truth as relevant outside the courtroom as inside it: we tell ourselves stories in order to live but also in order to take revenge to share guilt to prolong pain to blur memory and motive.The Atlantic A gripping account of a murder trial in which few of the participants act and react in ways we might predict. Its an examination not just of what happened but also of what we prefer to believe and what we cannot face believing.Julian Barnes As involving heart-rending and unsettling a read as you could possibly find a true-life account of three deaths and a trial that leaves you with a profound sense of unease as its drama unfolds and disturbing questions about how we judge guilt and innocence…Tailor-made for those who have gorged recently on the popular true-crime podcast Serial.The Times UK Helen Garners account of the trial is a non-literary variation of Truman Capotes In Cold Blood (1966). It is all the more shocking for her direct no-nonsense often horrified approach. Eileen Battersby Irish Times This House of Grief has all the trademark Helen Garner touches: harrowing scenes recorded without restraint or censorship; touching observations of characters weaknesses; wry moments of humor.Guardian The twists and turns of this true-crime story are in Garners hands more engrossing and dramatic than any thriller. Really this is the kind of book youll devour in one go.The Age Clear-eyed and deeply moving…Garners skills as a novelist combine with her journalist incisiveness to give a vivid compassionate and complex assessment of the crime and the societal issues surrounding it…This House of Grief is a book that preys on the mindits themes are enormous classical and highly contemporary.NZ Herald Garner sat through all the trials: sifting the evidence observing the duelling lawyers digging deep into the relationships which contributed to the catastrophe. She has turned a courtroom drama into something deeply human.Australian Womens Weekly On the evening of 4 September 2005 Robert Farquharson a separated husband was driving his three sons home to their mother when his car plunged into a dam. The boys aged ten seven and two drowned. Was this an act of deliberate revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garners obsession. She was in the courtroom every day of Farquharsons trial and subsequent retrial along with countless journalists and the families of both the accused and his former wife. In this utterly compelling book Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. At its core is a search for truth that takes author and reader through complex psychological terrain. Garner exposes with great compassion that truth and justice are as complex as human frailty and morality. Part of a nonfiction tradition that began with Truman Capotes In Cold Blood and continues in the works of Janet Malcolm Erroll Morris and others. Praise for Helen Garners The Spare Room: "Helen Garner is a great writer."Peter Carey "Swift beautiful and relentless."Alice Sebold "The Joan Didion of Australia"Los Angeles Times Helen Garner born in 1942 is the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction. Her most recent novel The Spare Room was published to critical acclaim in 2010.