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A review by jaclyn_sixminutesforme
How to End a Story: Diaries: 1995–1998 by Helen Garner
5.0
Narrative nonfiction is admittedly my absolute jam, and my post-lockdown brain was absolutely in for the energy and buzz around this much anticipated third-volume of Helen Garner’s diaries. Say what you will about book hype, but it’s a lovely feeling to think that there are lots of readers out there turning the same pages you are.
If you’ve not read Garner before, or have some familiarity with the #Auslit scene, i’m not sure these reads will hit the same (or at all, tbh). Nor do I think they’re the place to start with her oeuvre (Joe Cinque’s Consolation was my first Garner and I’d recommend it).
I think this has been my favourite volume for its pace—I feel like the subject matter tethers the reader most directly here, while still relishing in the more everyday observations that Garner’s writing flourishes within. Beyond just the pages, this is the volume that made me *feel* incredibly for Garner as a human—the depth of emotion and vulnerability shared about her marriage to V, his infidelity and gaslighting, the absolute hold this all had on Garner as an artist… it was brutal and left me veering between speechlessness and vicarious heartbreak (if you’d taken my blood pressure reading from p164 onwards
If you’ve not read Garner before, or have some familiarity with the #Auslit scene, i’m not sure these reads will hit the same (or at all, tbh). Nor do I think they’re the place to start with her oeuvre (Joe Cinque’s Consolation was my first Garner and I’d recommend it).
I think this has been my favourite volume for its pace—I feel like the subject matter tethers the reader most directly here, while still relishing in the more everyday observations that Garner’s writing flourishes within. Beyond just the pages, this is the volume that made me *feel* incredibly for Garner as a human—the depth of emotion and vulnerability shared about her marriage to V, his infidelity and gaslighting, the absolute hold this all had on Garner as an artist… it was brutal and left me veering between speechlessness and vicarious heartbreak (if you’d taken my blood pressure reading from p164 onwards