The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
'Author of Monkey Grip, The Children's Bach, and The First Stone - as well as other award-winning non-fiction - Helen Garner has kept readers on their toes for more than three decades. After sixteen years of non-fiction, readers might have assumed that Cosmo Cosmolino (1992) was destined to be the last of Garner's major fiction. Then, in 2008, The Spare Room - a novel based largely on three weeks spent nursing a terminally ill friend - was released to widespread critical acclaim.' (p. 28)