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Description
For the first time ever, collected here are all three volumes of the diaries of Helen Garner, inviting readers into the world behind the novels and nonfiction of a literary force.
“This is one for the introverts — the wary and the peevish, the uncertain of their looks, taste, talent and class status . . . . [Garner's] prose is clear, honest, and economical; take it or leave it.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review
The name Helen Garner commands near-universal acclaim. A master of many literary forms, Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portraits of "ordinary people in difficult times" (New York Times). But the inspiration for it all was her extensive collection of diaries—fastidiously kept, intricately written, and delightfully dishy, unspooling the inner lives of her insular world in bohemian Melbourne.
Now, for the first time, all three volumes of Garner's inimitable diaries are collected into one book. Spanning more than two decades, each finely etched volume reveals Garner like never before: a fledgling author publishing her lightning-rod debut novel in the late 70s; in the throes of a consuming affair in the late 80s; and clinging to a disintegrating marriage in the late 90s. And all the while, they bear witness to one of the world's great writers hard at work.
Devastatingly honest and disarmingly funny, How to End a Story is a portrait of loss, betrayal, and the sheer force of a woman’s anger—but also of resilience, quotidian moments of joy, the immutable ties of motherhood, and the regenerative power of a room of one’s own.
“This is one for the introverts — the wary and the peevish, the uncertain of their looks, taste, talent and class status . . . . [Garner's] prose is clear, honest, and economical; take it or leave it.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review
The name Helen Garner commands near-universal acclaim. A master of many literary forms, Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portraits of "ordinary people in difficult times" (New York Times). But the inspiration for it all was her extensive collection of diaries—fastidiously kept, intricately written, and delightfully dishy, unspooling the inner lives of her insular world in bohemian Melbourne.
Now, for the first time, all three volumes of Garner's inimitable diaries are collected into one book. Spanning more than two decades, each finely etched volume reveals Garner like never before: a fledgling author publishing her lightning-rod debut novel in the late 70s; in the throes of a consuming affair in the late 80s; and clinging to a disintegrating marriage in the late 90s. And all the while, they bear witness to one of the world's great writers hard at work.
Devastatingly honest and disarmingly funny, How to End a Story is a portrait of loss, betrayal, and the sheer force of a woman’s anger—but also of resilience, quotidian moments of joy, the immutable ties of motherhood, and the regenerative power of a room of one’s own.
Product Details
| Publisher | Pantheon |
| Publish Date | March 11, 2025 |
| Pages | 832 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Hardback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780553387490 |
| Dimensions | 9.6 X 6.3 X 1.5 inches | 2.4 pounds |
About the Author
Helen Garner writes novels, stories, screenplays, and works of non-fiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, and in 2016 she won the prestigious Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Non-fiction. In 2019 she was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. Her books include Monkey Grip, The Children’s Bach, Cosmo Cosmolino, The Spare Room, The First Stone, This House of Grief, Everywhere I Look, and her diaries The Yellow Notebook, One Day I’ll Remember This, and How to End a Story.
Reviews
“I was utterly in [Garner’s] hands. . . . This is one for the introverts — the wary and the peevish, the uncertain of their looks, taste, talent and class status. Garner has an ideal voice to express late-night pangs of precariousness and distress, some more comic than others. Her prose is clear, honest, and economical; take it or leave it, in the Australian manner.”
—Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review
"How to End a Story is among the best things she has written . . . . the real value of this collection is the opportunity it affords us to see the domestic, ordinary, everyday world through Garner’s eyes."
—Lance Richardson, Washington Post
"Here is someone who knows how to strike, softly, a killing blow. As with the best Garner, however, the main achievement of the entry isn’t what it says: it’s how much it doesn’t say. . . . In her diary—more so even than in her fiction and nonfiction—we find a way to survive that feels less like a riddle and more like a recipe we can follow."
—Josh Billings, Los Angeles Review of Books
“In dreams and treasured quotations, conversations and therapy sessions, Garner uncovers the texture of minutiae, the vibration of grand thoughts, and the aftertaste of defeat. By the end, Garner is scorched, but like a spore rejuvenated by a cleansing fire, she emerges reanimated. Offering intoxicating insight into the creative mind, Garner’s diaries will tantalize the voyeur and inspire fellow visionaries who embrace such journeys of discovery.”
—Booklist (starred review)
"[Garner's diaries] really are a gold mine . . . The candidness with which she scrutinises her own very human prejudices, sympathies and sentimentalities brings a deeper, more interestingly fraught complexity to the horror stories about which she writes. Perhaps because she’s long been such a presence on the page, the diaries feel less of a revelation and more of a continuation of one of today’s finest writer’s remarkable life’s project."
—Lucy Scholes, Financial Times
"In some ways, the diaries are the apotheosis of [Garner's] entire career, and the most exciting thing she has ever published."
―LitHub
"Magnificent . . . During an acute bout of uncertainty, [Garner] confides, "Each morning I set out for my office weak with fear. I will never be a great writer." Sorry to break the news, but she was wrong."
—Michael Magras, Shelf Awareness
"No-one today would question Garner’s significance, her intellectual heft, her bankability or her right to the prodigious space she occupies in Australian letters . . . A monumental achievement."
—Harper’s Bazaar
"The sensory nature of her observations is glorious."
—Guardian
"The ordinary in these diaries—the daily, the diurnal, the stumbled-upon, the breathing in and out—is turned into something else through the writer’s extraordinary craft."
—Australian Book Review
—Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review
"How to End a Story is among the best things she has written . . . . the real value of this collection is the opportunity it affords us to see the domestic, ordinary, everyday world through Garner’s eyes."
—Lance Richardson, Washington Post
"Here is someone who knows how to strike, softly, a killing blow. As with the best Garner, however, the main achievement of the entry isn’t what it says: it’s how much it doesn’t say. . . . In her diary—more so even than in her fiction and nonfiction—we find a way to survive that feels less like a riddle and more like a recipe we can follow."
—Josh Billings, Los Angeles Review of Books
“In dreams and treasured quotations, conversations and therapy sessions, Garner uncovers the texture of minutiae, the vibration of grand thoughts, and the aftertaste of defeat. By the end, Garner is scorched, but like a spore rejuvenated by a cleansing fire, she emerges reanimated. Offering intoxicating insight into the creative mind, Garner’s diaries will tantalize the voyeur and inspire fellow visionaries who embrace such journeys of discovery.”
—Booklist (starred review)
"[Garner's diaries] really are a gold mine . . . The candidness with which she scrutinises her own very human prejudices, sympathies and sentimentalities brings a deeper, more interestingly fraught complexity to the horror stories about which she writes. Perhaps because she’s long been such a presence on the page, the diaries feel less of a revelation and more of a continuation of one of today’s finest writer’s remarkable life’s project."
—Lucy Scholes, Financial Times
"In some ways, the diaries are the apotheosis of [Garner's] entire career, and the most exciting thing she has ever published."
―LitHub
"Magnificent . . . During an acute bout of uncertainty, [Garner] confides, "Each morning I set out for my office weak with fear. I will never be a great writer." Sorry to break the news, but she was wrong."
—Michael Magras, Shelf Awareness
"No-one today would question Garner’s significance, her intellectual heft, her bankability or her right to the prodigious space she occupies in Australian letters . . . A monumental achievement."
—Harper’s Bazaar
"The sensory nature of her observations is glorious."
—Guardian
"The ordinary in these diaries—the daily, the diurnal, the stumbled-upon, the breathing in and out—is turned into something else through the writer’s extraordinary craft."
—Australian Book Review
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