This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial -- Helen Garner, Hardcover

The engrossing true-crime classic from one of Australia's most acclaimed writers, that follows a man and his broken life, a community wracked by tragedy, and the long and torturous road to closure - "This House of Grief, in its restraint and control, bears comparison with In Cold Blood."--Kate Atkinson, author of Big Sky and Shrines of Gaiety

On the evening of Father's Day, 2005, separated husband Robert Farquharson was driving his three young sons back to their mom's house when the car veered off the road and plunged into a dam. Farquharson survived the crash, but his boys drowned. Was this a tragic accident, or an act of revenge? The court case that followed became a national obsession--a macabre parade of witnesses, family members, and the defendant himself, each forced to relive the unthinkable for an audience of millions.

In This House of Grief, celebrated writer Helen Garner tells the definitive and deeply absorbing story of it all, from crash to final verdict. Through a panoply of perspectives, including her own as a member of the public, Garner captures the exacting procedure and brutal spectacle of Australia's criminal justice system. The result is a richly textured portrait--of a man and his broken life, of a community wracked by tragedy, and of the long and torturous road to closure.

Considered a literary institution in Australia, Helen Garner's incisive nonfiction evokes the keen eye of the New Journalists. Brisk, candid, and never dismissive of its flawed subjects, This House of Grief is a masterwork of literary journalism.

Author: Helen Garner
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Published: 10/10/2023
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.32lbs
Size: 9.52h x 6.53w x 0.97d
ISBN: 9780553387438

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2023
Booklist 09/01/2023 pg. 12

About the Author
HELEN GARNER writes novels, stories, screenplays, and works of non-fiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, and in 2016 she won the prestigious Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for Non-fiction. In 2019 she was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. Her books include Monkey Grip, The Children's Bach, Cosmo Cosmolino, The Spare Room, The First Stone, This House of Grief, Everywhere I Look, and her diaries Yellow Notebook, One Day I'll Remember This, and How to End a Story.