This House of Grief
This House of Grief is a 2014 non-fiction work by the Australian writer Helen Garner.[1] Subtitled "The story of a murder trial", its subject matter is the conviction for murder of a man who accused of driving his car into a dam resulting in the deaths of his three children.[2]
Background
Main article: Robert Farquharson
On 4 September 2005 a car driven by Robert Farquharson left the road and crashed into a dam, resulting in the deaths of his three sons. He was convicted of their murder on 5 October 2007.[3] Farquharson appealed the decision, and on 17 December 2009 the conviction was set aside and a new trial ordered [4][5]
Writing
Epigram
The epigram to the book is "this treasury of pain, this house of power and grief", a quotation from Hungarian poet Dezső Kosztolányi's Kornél Esti. The epigram is directed to the Supreme Court of Victoria.[6]
Critical reception
- In The Monthly, Ramona Koval wrote that the work was "devastating, utterly compelling".[7]
- In an essay in "The Conversation" website the writer was of the opinion that Garner "fails to address the broader issues of gender inequality and male violence".[8]
- In The Australian Peter Craven wrote that the book was "some kind of masterpiece and Garner creates, moment by moment, with a breathtaking suspension of judgment, the whirlwind that blows across every corner of this story like a hard rain that comes with the force of a desolation, sparing nothing.".[2] Craven also noted that Garner had previously written about legal cases as "an old hand at using a novelist’s technique to create a pointillist image of a trial" in The First Stone and Joe Cinque's Consolation.[2]
- In UK daily newspaper The Guardian Kate Clanchy wrote, "[…] the whole book feels final, elegiac – perhaps because for all the horror, it is so elegantly and calmly written; perhaps because This House of Grief completes so many arcs begun in Garner's previous works; perhaps because it is impossible to imagine it being done better".[9]
Awards and nominations
- 2015 shortlisted Indie Awards — Nonfiction
- 2015 longlisted Stella Prize
- 2015 shortlisted Kibble Literary Awards — Nita Kibble Literary Award
- 2015 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian General Non-Fiction Book of the Year
- 2015 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
- 2015 winner Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing — Best True Crime[10]
- 2015 shortlisted Colin Roderick Award
- 2015 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Non-Fiction
References
- ↑ Cameron Woodhead (29 August 2014). "Drama in the dark deeds of the human heart". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
- 1 2 3 Peter Craven (23 August 2014). "Robert Farquharson murder case takes Helen Garner into the abyss". The Australian. News Corp Australia. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
- ↑ "Farquharson found guilty of dam murder". Lateline. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 5 October 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
- ↑ Donovan, Samantha (17 December 2009). "Farquharson to be re-tried". PM (ABC Radio). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
- ↑ "R v Farquharson [2009] VSCA 307 (17 December 2009)". Australasian Legal Information Institute. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
- ↑ Helen Garner (20 August 2014). This House of Grief. Text Publishing. ISBN 9781921961434. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
- ↑ Ramona Koval (September 2014). "'This House of Grief' by Helen Garner". The Monthly. Schwartz Publishing. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
- ↑ Thompson, Jay Daniel (29 October 2014). "Garner's This House of Grief ducks some hard questions". The Conversation. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
- ↑ Clanchy, Kate (9 January 2016). "This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner". The Guardian, Review section. London. p. 7. Retrieved 12 January 2016.
- ↑ Australian Crime Writers - 2015 Ned Kelly Award Winners
External links
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