How to End a Story

For the first time ever, collected here are all three volumes of the diaries of Helen Garner, inviting readers into the world behind the novels and nonfiction of a literary force. The name Helen Garner commands near-universal acclaim. A master of many literary forms, Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portraits of "ordinary people in difficult times" (New York Times). But the inspiration for it all was her extensive collection of diaries—fastidiously kept, intricately written, and delightfully dishy, unspooling the inner lives of her insular world in bohemian Melbourne. Now, for the first time, all three volumes of Garner's inimitable diaries are collected into one book. Spanning more than two decades, each finely etched volume reveals Garner like never before: a fledgling author publishing her lightning-rod debut novel in the late 70s; in the throes of a consuming affair in the late 80s; and clinging to a disintegrating marriage in the late 90s. And all the while, they bear witness to one of the world's great writers hard at work. Devastatingly honest and disarmingly funny, How to End a Story is a portrait of loss, betrayal, and the sheer force of a woman’s anger—but also of resilience, quotidian moments of joy, the immutable ties of motherhood, and the regenerative power of a room of one’s own.
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The third instalment of diaries from the inimitable Helen Garner covers four eventful years in the life of one of Australia’s most treasured writers.
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'There are very few writers that I admire more than Helen Garner' DAVID NICHOLLS 'The greatest, richest journals by a writer since Virginia Woolf's' RACHEL COOKE, OBSERVER 'Marvellous, all eight hundred pages of it' COLM TÓIBÍN 'The great Australian writer's masterpiece' THE TIMES Helen Garner has kept a diary for most of her adult life. Now she is widely recognised as one of the greatest writers of our age. But, of all her books, it is her diaries that she likes best. Collected for the first time into one volume, these inimitable diaries show Garner like never before: as a fledging author in bohemian Melbourne, publishing her lightning-rod debut novel while raising a young daughter in the 1970s; in the throes of an all-consuming love affair in the 1980s; and clinging to a disintegrating marriage in the 1990s. How to End a Story reveals the inner life of a woman in love, a mother, a friend and a formidable writer at work. Told with devastating honesty, steel-sharp wit and an ecstatic attention to the details of everyday life, it offers all the satisfactions of a novel alongside the enthralling intimacy of something written in private and just for pleasure. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LESLIE JAMISON 'Acute, rigorous, pitch-perfect' NIGELLA LAWSON 'With sharp eyes and ears, Garner is a recording angel at life's secular apocalypses' JAMES WOOD, NEW YORKER 'Dazzling, fearless greatness. I could not recommend this book more' INDIA KNIGHT 'An acclaimed celebrator of the poetic quotidian' ANNE ENRIGHT