Few books open with the quiet force of Helen Garner’s This House Of Grief – Dua’s Monthly Read for August. Here, in a Service95 Book Club exclusive, she reads those haunting first pages aloud.
The extract sets the tone for the entire book, as Helen’s voice carries the quiet devastation of a story that still lingers in the national psyche: the story of Robert Farquharson, who was accused of deliberately driving his three sons into a dam on Father’s Day. Helen recounts watching the news unfold on the TV, then later driving past the site where the boys were killed, where three little white crosses stand, and a scene in the Supreme Court in Melbourne where Helen describes a brief encounter with Robert Farquharson himself.
It doesn’t stop there: get under the skin of This House Of Grief with more from the Service95 Book Club...
WATCH Dua’s interview with the author, Helen Garner
LISTEN to the interview on the go with the new Service95 Book Club podcast
BOOKMARK the novels that inspired Helen Garner’s writing
READ why Helen Garner is the fearless Australian voice the world is finally listening to
