Helen Garner
Helen Garner
Helen Garner is an Australian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. Garner's first novel, Monkey Grip, published in 1977, immediately established her as an original voice on the Australian literary scene—it is now widely considered a classic. She has a reputation for incorporating and adapting her personal experiences in her fiction, something that has brought her widespread a
"Course I care. I always care. But theres no point in making a song and dance about it, like that night he stayed here. Know something? Theres only one thing thatll bring em back, and thats indifference. The one thing you cant fake."
Helen Garner"Her handwriting in these pencilled jottings, made forty-five years ago, is exactly as it is today: this makes me suspect, when I am not with her, that she is a closet intellectual."
Helen Garner"On Melbourne summer mornings the green trams go rolling in stately progress down tunnels thick with leaves: the bright air carries along the avenue their patient chime, the chattering of their wheels"
Helen Garner"Its rather like a Poe story, isnt it, said Patrick luxuriously, unfocusing his eyes. A person sees the chance of a better life passing by, and he makes as if to call out - he flung one arm in the imploring gesture of a soul in torment - but something in his nature makes him hesitate. He pauses ... he closes his lips ... he steps back ... and then he slides down, and down, and down."
Helen Garner"And always Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne, over and over the same photo in glaring greens and reds, of a tram, huffy, blunderous, manoeuvring itself with pole akimbo round the tight corner where Bourke Street enters Spring."
Helen Garner"Ideas came swarming through her, and like many people who labour in the obsession of solitude, she lacked the detachment to challenge them."
Helen Garner"Crap, said Janet. He was a whinger and he wrote it down. Thats not poetry."
Helen Garner"The devils everywhere, he said. Not just at Brunswick one day and somewhere else the next. Hes everywhere."
Helen Garner"The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfilment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall."
Helen Garner"Out in deep space the planets sweep, inexorable, along their splendid orbits. Maxine bowed her head. From now on she would take the gods dictation."
Helen Garner"Our minds are not hopeful, thought Janet; but our nerves are made of optimistic stuff."
Helen Garner"That, I said, would be a blessing. There are so many things Id like to forget I hardly know what would be left standing, if I ever got started."
Helen Garner
