This House of Grief

Winner, Ned Kelly Awards, Best True Crime, 2015 A Times Literary SupplementBook of the Year, 2014

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. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner's obsession. She followed it on its...
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Winner, Ned Kelly Awards, Best True Crime, 2015
A Times Literary SupplementBook of the Year, 2014

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. Was this an act of 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 this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience, all gathered for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth, players in the 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.

Helen Garnerwrites 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 Prize for non-fiction and the Western Australian Premier's Book Award. In 2019 she was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. Her novels include The Children's Bach, Cosmo Cosmolinoand The Spare Room. She lives in Melbourne.

'Helen Garner is a prodigiously gifted writer, one with many quivers in her bow. This House of Griefis the sort of book Joan Didion might have written if she'd had more of a heart.' New York Times Book Review

'If there's one impulse that connects all her work -- the true-crime books and those that earned her grief for airing uncomfortable truths -- it is the recognition of the humanity of villains and victims alike.' LA Times

'Helen Garner, the Australian novelist, journalist, diarist and screenwriter who, at 80, occupies the galvanizing spot in her culture once held in America by the likes of Mary McCarthy, Joan Didion and Susan Sontag. Steeped in her messy personal experience of the counter-culture and the gender wars, Garner's books win big prizes, kickstart controversies and say things other people rarely dare.' John Powers, NPR

'This House of Grief (Text) is a gripping account of a murder trial in which few of the participants act and react in ways we might predict. It's an examination not just of what happened, but also of what we prefer to believe and what we cannot face believing.' Julian Barnes, Books of the Year, TLS

'As involving, heart-rending and unsettling a read as you could possibly find, a true-life account of three deaths and a trial that leaves you with a profound sense of unease as its drama unfolds, and disturbing questions about how we judge guilt and innocence.' The Times

'This House of Grief is a magnificent book about the majesty of the law and the terrible matter of the human heart...If you read nothing else this year, read this story of the sorrow and pity of innocents drowned and the spectres and enigmas of guilt.' Peter Craven, Weekend Australian

'A rigorous, compassionate meditation on the unfathomable depths of human behaviour.' New York Times

'It grabbed me by the throat in the same way that the podcast series "Serial" did. Ms. Garner brilliantly and compassionately recounts the harrowing, real-life trial of Robert Farquharson.' Gillian Anderson, Wall Street Journal, Books of the Year 2015