The Spare Room
- 5 Sep 2019
- 9781786896087
- £9.99
- 208 pp
- 130×160mm
- 20 Nov 2008
- 9781847673619
- £7.99
- 208 pp
In a few words
This Australian novel is the journey of two women as their friendship is threatened by death. ‘A perfect novel’ Peter Carey
In a few words
This Australian novel is the journey of two women as their friendship is threatened by death. ‘A perfect novel’ Peter Carey
The Joan Didion of Australia
At once artful, gripping and fiercely beautiful . . . even at the most painful moments Garner maintains a characteristic lightness of touch, a combination of wit and lyricism that is immensely alluring . . . [an] extraordinary, exhilarating novel [and] a burningly passionate account of the one experience we will all share
Olivia Laing
ObserverThe Joan Didion of Australia
At once artful, gripping and fiercely beautiful . . . even at the most painful moments Garner maintains a characteristic lightness of touch, a combination of wit and lyricism that is immensely alluring . . . [an] extraordinary, exhilarating novel [and] a burningly passionate account of the one experience we will all share
Olivia Laing
ObserverMore about
the book
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.
More about
the book
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.
[Helen Garner] describes a kookaburra with a butter hangover, then with a few quick strokes conjures the radiance of a child and the spectre of death. I see why people rave about her, I will now too
Samantha Harvey
GuardianA perfect novel, imbued with all Garner's usual clear-eyed grace but with some other magnificent dimension that hides between the lines of her simple conversational voice. How is it that she can enter this heartbreaking territory - the dying friend who comes to stay - and make it not only bearable, but glorious, and funny? There is no answer except: Helen Garner is a great writer; The Spare Room is a great book
Peter Carey
Only great fiction demands us to reset our moral compass and look at our value coordinates all over again. The Spare Room achieves this . . . And yet in a book this spare, written with such grace, Garner introduces in the interstices a calm, precise poetry
Exceptional . . . an unsettling and skilled work that raises important questions about the process of dying and what caring well for the dying requires . . . So powerful is The Spare Room's communication of the the triumphs and failures involved in dying . . . [that] the reader painfully ricochets between the various positions . . . Somehow as we read we actually become these characters . . . This extraordinary effect results in an uncomfortable read. Yet it is also an oddly exhilarating book – often funny, and grounded in a kind of ordinariness that is deeply restorative
[Helen Garner] describes a kookaburra with a butter hangover, then with a few quick strokes conjures the radiance of a child and the spectre of death. I see why people rave about her, I will now too
Samantha Harvey
GuardianA perfect novel, imbued with all Garner's usual clear-eyed grace but with some other magnificent dimension that hides between the lines of her simple conversational voice. How is it that she can enter this heartbreaking territory - the dying friend who comes to stay - and make it not only bearable, but glorious, and funny? There is no answer except: Helen Garner is a great writer; The Spare Room is a great book
Peter Carey
Only great fiction demands us to reset our moral compass and look at our value coordinates all over again. The Spare Room achieves this . . . And yet in a book this spare, written with such grace, Garner introduces in the interstices a calm, precise poetry
Exceptional . . . an unsettling and skilled work that raises important questions about the process of dying and what caring well for the dying requires . . . So powerful is The Spare Room's communication of the the triumphs and failures involved in dying . . . [that] the reader painfully ricochets between the various positions . . . Somehow as we read we actually become these characters . . . This extraordinary effect results in an uncomfortable read. Yet it is also an oddly exhilarating book – often funny, and grounded in a kind of ordinariness that is deeply restorative
