This House of Grief

This House of Grief is a 2014 non-fiction work by Australian writer Helen Garner.^[1] Subtitled "The story of a murder trial", its subject matter is the conviction for murder of a man who accused of driving his car into a dam resulting in the deaths of his three children.^[2]

Background

On 4 September 2005 a car driven by Robert Farquharson left the road and crashed into a dam, resulting in the deaths of his three sons. He was convicted of their murder on 5 October 2007.^[3] Farquharson appealed the decision, and on 17 December 2009 the conviction was set aside and a new trial ordered ^[4][5]

Writing

Epigram

The epigram to the book is "this treasury of pain, this house of power and grief", a quotation from Hungarian poet Dezső Kosztolányi's Kornél Esti. The epigram is directed to the Supreme Court of Victoria.^[6]

Critical reception

• In The Monthly, Ramona Koval wrote that the work was "devastating, utterly compelling".^[7]
• In an essay in "The Conversation" website the writer was of the opinion that Garner "fails to address the broader issues of gender inequality and male violence".^[8]
• In The Australian Peter Craven wrote that the book was "some kind of masterpiece and Garner creates, moment by moment, with a breathtaking suspension of judgment, the whirlwind that blows across every corner of this story like a hard rain that comes with the force of a desolation, sparing nothing.".^[2] Craven also noted that Garner had previously written about legal cases as "an old hand at using a novelist’s technique to create a pointillist image of a trial" in The First Stone and Joe Cinque's Consolation.^[2]
• In UK daily newspaper The Guardian Kate Clanchy wrote, "[…] the whole book feels final, elegiac – perhaps because for all the horror, it is so elegantly and calmly written; perhaps because This House of Grief completes so many arcs begun in Garner's previous works; perhaps because it is impossible to imagine it being done better".^[9]

Awards and nominations

• 2015 shortlisted Indie Awards — Nonfiction
• 2015 longlisted Stella Prize
• 2015 shortlisted Kibble Literary Awards — Nita Kibble Literary Award
• 2015 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian General Non-Fiction Book of the Year
• 2015 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
• 2015 winner Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing — Best True Crime^[10]
• 2015 shortlisted Colin Roderick Award
• 2015 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Non-Fiction

References

1. Cameron Woodhead (29 August 2014). "Drama in the dark deeds of the human heart". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
2. Peter Craven (23 August 2014). "Robert Farquharson murder case takes Helen Garner into the abyss". The Australian (News Corp Australia). Retrieved 26 September 2014.
3. "Farquharson found guilty of dam murder". Lateline (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). 5 October 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
4. Donovan, Samantha (17 December 2009). "Farquharson to be re-tried". PM (ABC Radio) (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Retrieved 27 September 2014.
5. "R v Farquharson [2009] VSCA 307 (17 December 2009)". Australasian Legal Information Institute. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
6. Helen Garner (20 August 2014). This House of Grief. Text Publishing. ISBN 9781921961434. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
7. Ramona Koval (September 2014). "'This House of Grief' by Helen Garner". The Monthly. Schwartz Publishing. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
8. Thompson, Jay Daniel (29 October 2014). "Garner’s This House of Grief ducks some hard questions". The Conversation. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
9. Clanchy, Kate (9 January 2016). "This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner". The Guardian, Review section (London). p. 7. Retrieved 12 January 2016.
10. Australian Crime Writers - 2015 Ned Kelly Award Winners

External links

• NonfictioNow Melbourne 2012: An Evening with Helen Garner from Wheeler Centre website