Confronting but compelling ( )

As I raced through this unputdownable book, I completely forgot I was reading fiction, in no small part due to the narrator being a writer named Helen. In a sense, its so much like Helen Garner's non-fiction reportage (the dodgy cancer clinic, visit to medical specialists, consultation with friends with professional experience) - the difference is the first person description of Helen's emotions, which quickly evolve from noble friend to overwhelmed, angry and put-upon carer as she absorbs the weight of her role. Lovely descriptions of early friendship, family birthdays, granddaughter's awareness and the sheer relief of completing one's sentence and being able to hand the patient back. ( )

This book was welcomed as I had heard good things about it. Not always keen toaccept reviews at face value, as publishers and author are in my opion a tad disingenuous when incestuously reviewing one of their own.

This book, is so well constructed, it is seamlessly writtien. An easy read takes nothing away from the vast expanse of emotions felt.

Would you open your door to your cancer suffering bombastic friend. An illness can put pressure upon the relationship of course. But would you interfere, if you thought the path she had chosen was a sham? Unusual premise to address, very brave I thought.

A great book for reading groups, much to discuss. A hot potato.

Helen Garner: The Spare Room
Some writers have the gift of being able to present, to depict, individuals and the web of interpersonal emotions so often misunderstood in origin and expression and which can run the gamut of love to hate wrapped in confusion and angst. Helen Garner is such a writer in this fine, short novel. Nicola, a free spirit all her life, is dying of cancer but is so hungry for reassurance about her disease, and so focused on denying it that she falls for all sorts of charlatans who promise miraculous cures with procedures that the medical world distains, so the purveyors claim, only because they don’t understand or because it would undermine their own authorities or practices. Helen is an old friend whom Nicola comes to stay with for three weeks while she pursues her latest grasp at life through a flaky procedure to do with massive doses of Vitamin C and special steam baths.

Helen sees the how the “professionals” prey upon the vulnerabilities, and pocketbooks, of the terminally ill, but she cannot confront Nicola because Nicola is convinced, or at least that is what she presents, that this will cure her and in a matter of weeks she will be as good as new. As Nicola says at one point, “No one wants to know about it, if I’m sad or frightened….I’ve learnt to shut up. And present an optimistic face.” And Nicola feels that she has wasted her life which she knows, in her hearts of hearts, is coming to an end. This is all too much for Helen, exhausted physically and emotionally after a couple of weeks and she finally confronts Nicola: “Why do people love you?...You don’t suppose it could be because of your character? Like for example what a faithful friend you are? Who has never been known to bear a grudge? …Or your bottomless generosity? The way everything you touch becomes beautiful?...What about how funny you are?...the way you listen to people when they talk? You even remember details. When people are with you they feel free. Don’t you know that? You think this is waste?”

This is a novel about love and friendship, about reaching across the boundaries to face, to deal with the commonality of death, the one because it is personally imminent, the other because she wants to help but in the end it is the place where everyone must go alone and all you can do is show that love and friendship and compassion and caring sometimes in physical care, sometimes in emotional truths. And in the end there might be some sort of conclusion, but there will always be confusion; as Helen thinks the night before Nicola is fly back home, “I was sick with shame, raging at myself for raging, raging at death for existing, for being so slow with her and so cruel.”

The characters are wonderful, well drawn, sympathetic and real. The writing is as spare as the extra room in Helen’s house, but it flows and its simplicity draws in sharper relief the complex of emotions in play. A wonderful , close, intimate novel.

This is only a short book, and it's easy, inviting reading, so I finished it in less than 24 hours. For me, that's unusual and it partly reflects my enthusiasm for it.

I relate well to most books about aging and dying (the main issues in my life now), but I found this book especially engaging. Garner focuses on the role of anger between two old friends, one of whom is dying and would seem to be immune from criticism by virtue of her terminal condition. After all, how can you risk upsetting a friend who is likely to die any day now? As a person who experiences a lot of anger, most of which is suppressed (but that's another story!), I found a great resonance with the angry "Helen" character in this book. I was disappointed that the story didn't last longer. ( )