Non-fiction book of the month: This House of Grief by Helen Garner. ANSWERS BACK FROM HELEN!

[RachelMumsnet]

Our next non-fiction book choice is written by one of Australia's most revered writers of both fiction and non-fiction, Helen Garner. Her first novel Monkey Grip won numerous awards in Australia and was made into a film. Her non-fiction book, The First Stone caused much controversy dealing with a 1992 sexual harassment scandal at Ormond College, one of the residential colleges of the University of Melbourne.

This House of Grief follows the real life trial of a recently jilted father who drove his children into a dam in a small town in Victoria on Father's Day in 2005. The three children drown but he escapes, unharmed. It takes a seven year investigation and trial to determine whether this is a tragic accident or an act of vengeful murder. Helen Garner's incredibly detailed account of the trial is compelling and deeply unsettling. Apply for a free copy and join the discussion on this thread.

Helen has also agreed to answer your questions about the book, so please do post up Qs here before 29th April and we'll send over a selection to Helen. We'll upload her answers on 6th May.

@19sharon

I would like to ask Helen Garner how her feelings changed throughout the trial? I read that she had sat through the entire six week trial so did her judgments change throughout as mine are whilst I'm reading it?

Yes, I was in court every day of the two trials, and also the appeals. My feelings and thoughts constantly changed, according to the evidence that was being given. Sometimes I would be overwhelmed with pity, at other times with anger and disbelief, but mostly something more like grief. I’ve tried to build these fluctuations into the book, so people will know how it felt to be there, and how this might have affected my rational mind, such as it was.

@FoxInABox

Having finished the book, it is playing on my mind greatly- a book hangover. Can only agree with the ending that we all grieve the three boys, even though we did not know them. Heartbreaking but real insight into how court works, and so frightening to think that so much vital information is kept from a jury in the interests of fairness- when that same information has such a huge bearing. I wonder how this made Helen feel throughout the trial, being privy to those deliberations and compromises made between the lawyers and the judge, but knowing that the jury wouldn't find this information out?

Until I followed this trial I had never really understood how much is withheld from a jury. I still have trouble grasping some of the rules of evidence—they so often seem to run counter to a sense of common fairness, or of what a jury needs to know in order to make a proper decision. Once or twice I had to fight a mad urge to shout out the hidden fact, just to relieve the suspense, and the jurors’ obvious frustration.

But I have worked with a few judges over the years, and I’ve learnt from them what a fine line they have to steer in these matters – if they allow evidence to be admitted that shouldn’t be, there’s always a risk that a trial could be aborted, that a jury could be dismissed and everything have to go back to square one with a different jury, at huge expense to the state and causing further distress to the people involved.

@mrsmuddlepies

Questions for Helen - You are known as a feminist writer. Did your views as a feminist affect your attitude to the behaviour of Robert Farquharson?

I wouldn’t call myself a feminist writer, particularly since I published a book back in the 70s called The First Stone in which I criticized certain kinds of victim feminism that I hated making me persona non grata among many Australian feminists. But feminism is one of the forces that has formed the way I experience the world, and I owe it a great deal. Basic feminist analysis of men and women has sunk right into the fibre of me, over the last 40 years, so I naturally look at male-female relations through that understanding. But I don’t find it useful to sort of wield feminist thinking in a painful human situation while I’m watching it unfold in court. To walk in with my feminist views at the ready and my mind made up would limit my ability to feel compassion. You have to approach this work with as much compassion as you’re capable of, or it’s not worth doing.

@mrsmuddlepies

You write movingly about your relationship with your grandsons. Did your close relationship with them make the crime difficult to investigate and write about?

Yes, in the sense that my daily contact with my grandsons made the killing of the Farquharson boys almost impossible to contemplate without a disabling horror. I used to have a superstitious fear that what I’d heard in court would leak out of me and contaminate them. At the same time, though, they comforted me, with the sweetness of their presence and their affection.

@mrsmuddlepies

Throughout the book you show enormous compassion towards those involved in this tragedy. Were there times when you simply felt overwhelmed with anger when listening to the evidence? Did you ever feel that it was all too upsetting and that you could not face another day in court?

No – actually I looked forward to it every day, in spite of the distress it caused, because it was so fascinating in all its detail. Once a trial is really rolling, it has a huge momentum that scoops you up and carries you with it. You can’t think about anything else, and you’re so gripped by the detail of everyone’s behaviour, and by the long, slow development of the story and the arguments about it, that you can’t bear to miss a single moment. There were days when I wanted to run out screaming, or lie down on the bench and howl, just with the pain of it, and disbelief at what people are capable of. But once you’re hooked, you need (for your own sanity as much as anything else) to know everything that will be given to you to know. The big curve of a developing story is necessary, somehow, to resolve the pain of it.

@mrsmuddlepies

What did you learn about the way families and relationships work when put under this kind of intolerable strain?

I learnt that some people have a strength they can draw on, an ability to endure (in public, at least) with grace. Others are drawn to make use of the limelight – media attention gratifies something deep in them, perhaps a need to have their suffering witnessed by as many people as possible.

@mrsmuddlepies

Question for Helen.-

I believe you were a teacher at one time.How do your experiences in education affect your attitude to custodial sentences and reform? Did this case change your mind about punishment. Do you feel that the Australian system is fair or too harsh? Do you believe in capital punishment for crimes involving children?

I don’t ‘believe’ in capital punishment, but like most people (or the ones who’ll admit it) I have fantasies of capital punishment for crimes of violence against women and children. They’re fantasies that never quite go away.

@lottietiger

Thanks for sending me a copy :) I haven't finished yet but I'm really enjoying it, it's the first time I have read a book told from this perspective. It took me back to when I did jury service and how everything that's said changes your mind a little.. Can't wait to get to the end when I will post again.

Question for Helen.. Where did the idea come from to play the book out like a court room drama?

It was a form that was handed to me on a plate. And frankly I couldn’t see any other way to do it.

@Givemecoffeeplease

My question - what is Helen's reading material (for pleasure) when writing about such a sad story. Mine would have to be a comedy that's for sure.

I like a laugh, that’s for sure, but mostly I go on reading at random whatever heavy duty literature that takes my fancy in bookshops. Oh, wait – I did reread Barbara Pym, several times. She throws me into convulsions of laughter. I never get tired of her.

@Hillfarmer

This book is beautifully written and Helen Garner was a really excellent and humane guide through this trial.

I'm amazed that Givemecoffee has read the book and still finds an 'if' hanging over it!

I felt Garner's feminism in interesting corners of the narrative. And I would like to ask her what she thinks about men and cars. It was a fascinating 'Whydunnit' and along with lots of other thoughts, I was left wondering if Robert Farqharson would have acted differently if he had had custody of the 'better car'?

Men and cars, wow, what a huge subject. My explanation of men’s road rage, for instance, is that a man’s sense of himself, his ego if you like, expands to fill his car, right to the very outer layer of the duco; so that even the lightest bump from a passing stranger’s vehicle can be enough to produce a tremendous aggressive reaction. I imagine that if Farquharson had got the good car he might not have felt quite so humiliated before the other men of the very small town he lived in. In saying this I absolutely do not mean to suggest that his wife was responsible for what he did. And no one will ever know which aspect of his humiliation and jealousy and grief weighed most heavily on his heart.

@Persistentdonor

Thank you for allowing me to review this book, which is the story of an actual murder trial. I have only read about 1/4 of the book so far, but I am favourably impressed by the author's objectivity.

My question to Helen would be to ask whatever made her want to focus on this dreadful event for the time it would take to write a book about this trial? Did she find writing about it in some way cathartic?

If I’d known the case would go on for seven years I would have run a mile. After the first trial, I thought it was over and that I could go away and write an account of it. But it kept on developing—appeal, retrial, second conviction, second appeal, attempt to go to the High Court, each stage separated from the next by a whole year. The trouble is that you can never know in advance how much of your life you’re committing to a project like this. And by the time you realize how far in you are, it’s too late to back out. The only way to get it out of your system is to write the book. And that is cathartic, yes.

@dollypops

Thanks Mumsnet and Text Publishing for the book.

Question for Helen: Hi Helen, I wondered if you could comment on the role of your your young intern in the book? She seemed to be very important in the first trial, not only as a companion, but also as a way of seeing the trial through other, perhaps younger eyes. It was interesting to note how she was able to detach herself from the trial in a way that wasn't possible for you and other journalists and I wondered whether you thought this and if this was something to do with having children/ grandchildren yourself or perhaps the fact that you knew you would write about it? I found it moving how she came back for the retrial at the end - she seemed to have quite a motherly role - which was a small interesting part in a book that was all about parenting and children.

Thank you.

On another note, and this is really for your Australian publishers, it would be fantastic to know if/ when The Children's Bach will be re-issued in the UK - I'm very keen to read!

Louise was a wonderful companion at the first trial. She’s much more of an intellectual than I am, equipped with a very fine ability to handle sophisticated concepts. She would grasp a point of law at twice the speed I did. She had the dry, sharp legal brain and the ability (as you point out) to detach, while I had the experience of life, marriage, parenthood and so on. We made a good team. A few years after the trial she started to do a law degree, but dropped out after a couple of semesters. I suspect she really wants to be a writer.

I don’t know the answer to this – but The Children’s Bach is still in print over here, so you could get it online.

@StickChildNumberTwo

I've just finished the book, and can't say I enjoyed it as such (it's far too distressing a story, with the knowledge that it all really happened) but I found myself needing to know what happened. I'm not sure it's converted me to reading True Crime as a genre though - I like my stories more neatly wrapped up than usually happens in real life. I think I read to escape, and that doesn't work so well with non-fiction. Having said that, this was well written and an engaging read.

My question for Helen is: At many points during the book you seem sceptical about the processes of the trial, whether the conversations that happen outside the hearing of the jury, or the cross examinations of technical evidence which send everyone into a stupor. Do you think trial by jury is an appropriate and just way to determine whether someone is guilty of murder?

Like all human endeavours, a jury trial is shot through with flaws, some of outrageous or tragic. But I don’t know of any other workable system. Has any country ever come up with one? I really don’t know the answer.

I was delighted to receive a copy of this book through the Mumsnet Giveaway. I don't usually go for Non-Fiction books, but was gripped both by the story and by the way in which it was written, simply beautiful. It captures grief, frailty, awkward truths and doubts and gives us an insight into the court system in Australia. I found it very hard to form an opinion about the father, mostly due to the details that arose as I turned each page - I flipped between guilty and not guilty many times! I really enjoyed the style as well as the story.

I don't normally read non-fiction books but I thought this book was brilliant and very engaging. I found it harrowing at times but thought the author showed so much compassion and incite into the people involved. I also found it interesting to know more about how a trial runs. I finished it last night and I thought the ending was very poignant. I think it will be playing on my mind for a long time afterwards.

Thanks to Mumsnet I have just finished this book. What a tragic story. The book was so interesting and really enjoyed to see how the trial worked and what was allowed to be said and not.

There are too many of these stories in the news about fathers taking away their children and makes me think that somewhere along the way society is failing the children and the parents. Sometimes feelings are just too great to see sense. If I had been on this jury I would have found it very difficult to decide the verdict.

Thanks again for this book!