The Children’s Bach
Helen Garner
£9.99
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
‘The Children’s Bach is Garner’s masterpiece’
PUBLIC BOOKS
‘A perfect novel. I was so stunned that I wanted to run around the block’
RUMAAN ALAM
Athena and Dexter Fox are happy. They love each other. They are friends.
They live with their 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, one day – years after their lives have taken different directions – 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.
Helen Garner’s perfectly formed novels embody Melbourne’s tumultuous 1970s and 1980s. Drawn on a small canvas and with a subtle musical backdrop, The Children’s Bach is a beloved work that weighs the burdens of commitment against the costs of liberation.
A W&N Essential
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