The Season

‘I understand zip about football or any sport, but I cried. Glorious.’ * Charlotte Wood * ‘[Garner] is working in epic mode in The Season as she examines familiar themes and preoccupations: masculinity and its codes, the pleasures and contradictions of social groups, what it means to bear witness…Garner has always been an extraordinary stylist and in The Season her prose, athletic, soars and dances, just like those young footballers.’ * Guardian * ‘The Season is marked by [Helen Garner’s] unsparing eye for detail and that superpower of detachment—a narrator who sees everything yet who is also deeply involved in the story, with emotional flourishes that rise when she watches her grandson.’ * Age * ‘Startling in its candour and compelling in its nakedness…A marvellous paean to the glories of youth just shy of the treacheries of manhood.’ * Australian * ‘Incredibly tender. About the seasons of football and the season of life…Written in her beautiful prose…I think people will enjoy it very much.’ * Jason Steger, ABC RN The Bookshelf, Best Books of 2024 * ‘One of Australia’s greatest living writers.’ * Canberra Times * ‘A strong, beautiful book…The Garner of The Season is the Garner her readers know, with her exceptional control over language, her exceptional skill at observing and describing.’ * Saturday Paper * ‘The sentences are precise and they sing. [Garner] turns from philosophical reverie on mortality, or violence, or masculine shame, to capturing the looseness and love with which a family talks footy…It’s a book of gentle pleasures and deep meanings…As ever, when you put a Helen Garner book down and look up at the world again, you do so with newly sharpened eyes.’ * Monthly * ‘[Helen Garner’s] prose is as luminous as ever.’ * Australian Book Review * ‘A deeply talented and intelligent writer…In this book performed in a minor key, Garner the grandmother is on song, displaying the very qualities she exalts in athletes: candour, discipline, vigilance and valour.’ * Conversation * ‘Garner’s real subject is the broader terrain of grace, loyalty, grit and what it means to be masculine today…It’s classic Garner actually: taut, observant prose, sprinkled with wry “nanna jokes” and descriptions that bring the scenes to life.’ * ArtsHub * ‘[Garner’s] observational skills and her ability to drill down into character and place, make this not only an excellent memoir but also an examination of nascent masculinity, ageing, and the place of sport in contemporary life.’ * Good Reading * ‘Garner comes at football with a naive perspective and a poet’s eye for detail. She’s just opened the door to this new world and voraciously eats it up: the courage of the young players, the language of its commentators, the commitment of its supporters. Her insights into the game were illuminating and, for me, cast it in a new light. I must admit that I have done the reverse to Garner: after being a football fanatic, I had fallen out of football’s thrall in recent times. After reading this book, I watched my first full game in years. The Season will be appreciated by football fans, of course, but it contains multitudes. Just like the game itself.’ * Readings * ‘Over one footy season, Garner observes her youngest grandson’s U16 team at training and games, but of course, brings her vivid attention to masculinity, family, weather, ageing, our bodies, and much more.’ * Matilda Bookshop * ‘This is a book about sport. AFL. But this isn’t a polemic about football culture. This is, as Garner says, a nanna’s book about footy. Garner never says anything concrete. She dances around the roles of ritual in sport, and how it takes on a religious quality to those who follow it. Tracking her relationship with her youngest grandson over the season, she gives the utmost respect to the boys in the team and their constantly changing relationships with each other; they are the only characters (people?) with names in the entire book. The Season was a beautiful mix of sports and emotions, and while I didn’t learn a whole lot about the rules of AFL, I’m now obsessed with the relationship between Garner and her grandchildren.’ * Better Read Than Dead * ‘Characteristically sharp and tender. There’s nobody like Garner for her powers of observation and her keen appreciation of human beings.’ * Michael Williams, Qantas Magazine * ‘Is there anything more thrilling than reading Helen Garner on everyday things such as haircuts, the Melbourne skyline, ageing, AFL tactics, friendship and half-time oranges? A book for all seasons—not just the footy one!’ * Gleaner * ‘Regardless of your relationship to the sport, The Season is worth devouring—reflective of Garner’s ability to enthral us in any subject. Garner generously and joyously tells us about her relationship with her grandson Amby. It is refreshing and satisfying to read a book that is funny, perceptive of the complexities of masculinity but also current dialogues around gender, and is simply an ode to loving footy. It’s insightful into the lives of both teenage boys and 80-year-old women...So very “Melbourne”, it’s approachable, friendly, familiar, reminds me of my grandma, and a pleasurable Garner piece that will satisfy her loyalists! Read it!’ * Paperback Bookshop * ‘The Season<.i> is Death in Venice with Sherrin Balls…[Has an] ineffable longing for inclusion and camaraderie. And [Helen Garner’s] uncanny ear for dialogue, its rhythms and pacing, remains spot on.’ * Declan Fry, Best Books of 2024, Guardian * ‘Her perfect prose and sharp observations are a joy.’ * Sydney Morning Herald *