Publication Date: 14/03/2024 ISBN: 9781399606820 Category:

The Children’s Bach

Helen Garner

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
Publication Date: 14/03/2024 ISBN: 9781399606820 Category:
Paperback / Softback

£9.99

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Mr B's review

First published in 1984, and recently reissued (alongside two other works), The Children’s Bach has left me reeling as to why I’d never read Helen Garner before. Known as ‘the Australian Joan Didion’, and a genuine literary institution in Australia, but for some reason Helen is much lesser known here in the UK. I sincerely hope that’s about to change.

The Children’s Bach follows a complicated set of characters in 80s Melbourne – Dexter and Athena who are seemingly happy navigating their suburban family life with their two sons. Then in comes a friend from Dexter’s past with a cohort of companions that open their eyes to another way of living – one without routine or constraints, where freedom and abandon seems somehow possible. 

It feels like the kind of novel that deserves to be studied. At just under 200 pages long, there is so much to unpick, to read between the lines – so many hard-to-swallow human truths that feels reminiscent of the likes of Elizabeth Strout. And oh, what an exquisite ending! – Emma

Description

‘A jewel of a novel about a perfect family falling apart’ DAVID NICHOLLS
‘A slim, deeply humane work that tingles with life’ THE TIMES
‘One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century’ MERVE EMRE

Athena and Dexter Fox are content. They love each other. They are friends.

They live with their two young sons in a sparsely furnished house near the Merri Creek: its walls cracking, its floors sloping and its doors hanging loosely in their frames. There is a piano in their kitchen.

But then, Dexter runs into Elizabeth, an old friend from his university days. She brings into his world her loose-living musician boyfriend, Philip, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Vicki.

And all at once, the bonds that hold the Fox family together begin to fray.

Since its first publication in 1984, The Children’s Bach has been hailed as one of only four perfect short novels in the English language, one of the greatest family novels ever written and Garner’s masterpiece.

A W&N Essential with an introduction by David Nicholls

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