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What are readers saying about The Spare Room?
| Reviews of The Spare Room - Page 1 of 1 | «1»
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-02-15 02:05:58.
(Language: English)
 
I think the last Helen Garner I read was Monkey Grip when I was a teenager! Good to see she hasn't lost her gritty reality in her middle age (60 is the new 40 isn't it?). I have always marvelled at the kind of treatments that people cling to in advanced stages of cancer, and it does usually seem to be cancer patients more than most who are willing to suspend belief and put themselves through hell rather than face death. This was a very moving portrayal of an interesting friendship and got me thinking and wondering about my own future as a rootless, familyless 'bohemian' with scattered friends as is Nicola. 
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-02-06 11:59:43.
(Language: English)
Helen Garner’s first novel in fifteen years tells the story of Nicola, a woman in the advanced stages of cancer, and her friend Helen, who is to look after her for three weeks while she undergoes treatment in Melbourne. It is both a celebration of friendship and compassion and an examination of the rage and pain of the sufferer and the carer. It is beautiful. When I finished this book I wanted to read and re-read everything Helen Garner had ever written. Simple, clean prose and complex characters that live with a few deft strokes of a pen. What a writer!
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-02-03 04:37:32.
(Language: English)
Garner, known for her numerous works of non-fiction has, for the first time in seven years, written a novel which confirms her place as one of Australia’s most magically expressive and contemplative writers – almost every paragraph offering gems of emotional articulation, often, paradoxically, both elegiac and celebratory. Our protagonist, Helen offers her spare room in Melbourne to Nicola, her dear friend of 15 years. Nicola is obviously experiencing end-stages of cancer and has come from Sydney for a three week course of treatment at a more-than-questionable alternative clinic. Helen’s daily routine is turned on its head as she becomes full-time carer to her friend, debilitated by the likes of infusions of Vitamin C and organic coffee enemas. Helen becomes her ‘nurse, protector, guardian angel and judge’. As Nicola’s system is increasingly weakened and her seemingly blind faith in the clinic does not waver, Helen’s scepticism, anger and resentment grow. She questions the role she is playing and the appropriate action that a true friend should take in helping Nicola to accept the reality of her hopeless situation. The reader is left contemplating the nature of friendship; life & death; daily priorities; responsibility and love. I found myself also questioning the line between fact and fiction. Does it matter how much of an author’s self and reality is infused within a fictional story or vice versa? In this case, when the main character’s name is ‘Helen’ and she is a divorced 60-something award-winning writer and reviewer in Melbourne, one cannot help but contemplate the question. Did the real Helen Garner once play the ukulele, live next door to her daughter and care for a terminal friend? Which parts of The Spare Room were inspired by real life and which came from the author’s fertile imagination will, in all likelihood, remain an unanswered curiosity over which, no doubt, Garner is happy for us to ruminate. What is clear, however, is that Helen Garner gives of herself 100% in every book she writes and is unafraid to open the door a crack for her readers to glimpse aspects of her life and her philosophy. Her willingness to do so enriches her work and enhances her contribution to the Australian literary scene.
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