This is a strange book about death for the narrator, the carer, somehow demands your sympathy more than the poor dying cancer sufferer, Nicola. She stays in her friend’s spare room while undergoing alternative therapy that she believes will cure her. We can all see that it won’t, but should you take hope away from a cancer victim? A difficult question that is cruelly explored here in a wise narrative.
When Helen offers her spare room to her old friend Nicola, she has little idea of what lies ahead. Nicola has cancer and, sceptical of the medical establishment, is in the city for a course of alternative treatment. She is determined to deal with her illness in her own way, regardless of the advice that Helen can offer.
In the weeks that follow, Nicola's fight against cancer will turn not only her own life upside down but the lives of everyone around her. Told with humour and honesty, this unforgettable novel charts a friendship as it is tested in the face of death.
'This novel's extraordinary feat is to be at once affecting, involving and sharply funny.' The Sunday Times
'Garner is a storyteller, an observer...Her style is beautifully simple...People who are on a fixed diet of fiction or who graze on airport shelves could cleanse their palates with Garner as they might once have done with Jane Austen.' Sydney Morning Herald
'A piece of fiction at once artful, gripping and fiercly beautiful . . . even at the most painful moments Garner maintains a characteristic lightness of touch, a combination of wit and lyricism that is immensely alluring . . . [An] extraordinary, exhilarating novel . . a burningly passionate account of the one experience we all will share - the journey out of life.' Olivia Laing, Observer
'Garner is known for her frankness, her distinctive blend of tender affection and brutal truth-telling . . . [The Spare Room] is a powerful piece of work . . . Garner has insights aplenty.' Michel Faber, Guardian Review
'It's a book which asks unavoidable and painful questions, not least about the nature of friendship, with a clarity that offers no room for evasion. It refuses to offer easy answers or false comfort. A book for grown-up people, in other words. And the Lord knows, there are a lot of the other sort about.' Hilary Mantel
Author
About Helen Garner
Born in 1942, Helen Garner lives in Australia. She has written both fiction and non-fiction, and also journalism, and her writing has been nominated for and won many awards. This is her first novel for fifteen years.
