THIS HO-- USE OF GRIEF

A Sense of Place Magazine

Mar 31, 2016

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Leading Australian writer Helen Garner has made the Stella longlist for her book This House of Grief.

The Stella Prize is a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing. The prize is named after one of Australia’s iconic female authors, Stella Maria ‘Miles’ Franklin, and was awarded for the first time in 2013. Both nonfiction and fiction books by Australian women are eligible for entry.

Helen Garner rose to instant fame in 1977 with her first novel Monkey Grip, which explored one of the lifestyles of the time; welfare recipients living in share households.

As for This House of Grief; it explores one of the worst cases of patricide in Australian history.

Garner says anyone can see the place where the children died: "You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain."

Helen Garner

On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father's Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned.

A sick act of marital revenge or a tragic accident?

The court case became Helen Garner's obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the final verdict.

In her utterly compelling style, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life in this extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice.

This House of Grief is a heartbreaking and unputdownable book by one of Australia's most admired writers.