This House of Grief by Helen Garner

“This House of Grief, in its restraint and control, bears comparison with In Cold Blood.”—Kate Atkinson, author of Big Sky and Shrines of Gaiety

From one of Australia’s most prolific writers comes an engrossing true-crime saga, about a father suspected of murdering his three sons, the trial that gripped a nation, and the brutal spectacle of Australia’s criminal justice system

On the evening of September 4, 2005, Father’s Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, in rural Australia. His car veered off the road and plunged into a dam, and the boys, aged ten, seven, and two, drowned. Was this a tragic accident, or an act of revenge? The court case that followed became a national obsession—a macabre parade of witnesses, family members, and the defendant himself, each forced to relive the unthinkable for an audience of millions.

Helen Garner, the celebrated writer and master chronicler of Australian life, was equally swept up in Farquharson’s case. In This House of Grief, she tells the definitive and deeply absorbing story of it all, from the moment of the crash to the trial’s final verdict. Garner takes her reader behind oak doors and captures a panorama of perspectives, from the defendant himself, to the team of prosecutors, to the jury. But most crucially, she delves deep into her own perspective as a member of the public, a voyeur peering into a family’s darkest moments, and onto the exacting procedure of Australia’s criminal justice system. The result is richly textured portrait—of a man and his broken life, of a community wracked by tragedy, and of the long and torturous road to closure.

Written with Garner’s trademark style—brisk and candid, yet never dismissive of her deeply flawed subjects—This House of Grief is a modern classic and a masterwork of literary journalism.

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 Yellow Notebook, One Day I’ll Remember This, and How to End a Story.

Author Residence: Melbourne, Australia

Author Hometown: Geelong, Victoria, Australia