The Spare Room

Helen Garner

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English

Text Publishing Company
01 October 2009

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Australian Fiction

Helen prepares her spare room for her friend Nicola, who is flying down from Sydney for a three-week visit. But this is no ordinary visit-Nicola has advanced cancer. She is coming to Melbourne to receive treatment she believes will cure her.

From the moment Nicola steps off the plane, Helen becomes her nurse, her protector, her guardian angel and her stony judge.

The Spare Room tells a story of compassion and rage as the two women-one sceptical, one stubbornly serene-negotiate their way through Nicola's gruelling treatments. Garner's dialogue is pitch perfect, her sense of pacing flawless as this novel draws to its terrible and transcendent finale.

By: Helen Garner
Imprint: Text Publishing Company
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 200mm, Width: 131mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 172g
ISBN: 9781921520280
ISBN 10: 1921520280
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 01 October 2009
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for The Spare Room

'Garner's gradual awakening to her unadmitted anger is what gives her best book, her novel The Spare Room, much of its shattering power...The novel closes: It was the end of my watch, and I handed her over. Helen has done as much as she can do. It is a typical Garner sentence, a writing lesson (all novels should end as completely) and a life lesson: spare, deserved, and complexly truthful, both a confession of failure and a small song of success.' -- James Wood New Yorker

Short-listed for Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Short-listed for Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
Winner of Barbara Jefferis Award (Australia).
Winner of Barbara Jefferis Award 2009.
Winner of Queensland Premier's Award for Fiction (Australia).
Winner of Queensland Premier's Literary Awards: Best Fiction Book 2008.
Winner of Victorian Premier's Literary Award - Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction 2008.
Winner of Victorian Premier's Literary Award - Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction 2008.
Winner of Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction (Australia).