Helen Garner is one of Australia’s greatest writers.
Her short non-fiction has enormous range. Spanning fifteen years of work, Everywhere I Look is a book full of unexpected moments, sudden shafts of light, piercing intuition, flashes of anger and incidental humour. It takes us from backstage at the ballet to the trial of a woman for the murder of her newborn baby. It moves effortlessly from the significance of moving house to the pleasure of re-reading Pride and Prejudice.
Everywhere I Look includes Garner’s famous and controversial essay on the insults of age, her deeply moving tribute to her mother and extracts from her diaries, which have been part of her working life for as long as she has been a writer. Everywhere I Look glows with insight. It is filled with the wisdom of life.
'A rich, beautiful book by a poet of the everyday, a sheer master of prose. Give it to your grandmother, give it to your tweeting girlfriend. Give it to any man or woman who understands the magic of language. It will hurl them into great gulfs of pleasure, of turmoil and understanding and joy.' - Australian
'Imagine a writer who writes with the humour and precision of Joy Williams, the warmth and ferocity of Elena Ferrante, and the investigative rigor of Janet Malcolma Read this book and you will wonder how you lived for years without Garner's voice in your ear.' - John Freeman
'(Garner's) writing expresses a hard-won grace. It brings you closer to the world, and shows you how to love it She has laid the groundwork for a generation of writers; she has repeatedly shown us the glory and the power of an English sentence.' - Monthly
'This is Garner in expansive mood writing gracefully about everything from her family to ballet to the dawn service.' - Spectator
'The entire experience of reading Garneraopens up the sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious discord of our lives.' - Irish Times
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