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Honour & Other People’s Children

Honour & Other People’s Children: Text Classics

Text Classics

Helen Garner

Introduction by Michael Sala

Two classic Helen Garner novellas introduced by Michael Sala, award-winning author of The Last Thread and The Restorer.

Two novellas about the deep connections we forge with the people we love, and the pain of breaking those connections.

In Honour, Kathleen and Frank are amicably separated, in contact through shared parenting of their young daughter, Flo. But when Frank finds a new partner and wants a divorce, Kathleen is hurt. And Flo can’t understand why they all can’t live together.

In Other People’s Children, Ruth and Scotty live in a big share house that’s breaking up. Scotty is trying to hold on, remembering the early days of telling life stories and laughter and singing—and when the kids were everyone’s kids. But now the bitterness has crept in and their friendship is broken. Ruth is ready to move on—and she’ll take her kids with her.

Read the introduction by Michael Sala in the Australian ($) 

Helen Garner
About the Author

Helen Garner writes novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-fiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, and in 2016 she won the prestigious Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction. She was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature in 2019. And in 2023 she was awarded the...

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Michael Sala
About the Introducer

Michael Sala was born in the Netherlands in 1975 to a Greek father and a Dutch mother, and first came to Australia in the 1980s. He lives in Newcastle. His critically acclaimed debut, The Last Thread, won the 2013 NSW Premier’s Award for New Writing and was the regional winner (Pacific) of the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize.

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Extent:
240pp
Format:
Paperback
Text publication date:
2 July 2018
ISBN:
9781925603729
AU Price:
$14.95
NZ Price:
$17.99
Australian
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Praise for Helen Garner
andHonour & Other People’s Children

‘Garner is scrupulous, painstaking, and detailed, with sharp eyes and ears. She is everywhere at once, watching and listening, a recording angel at life’s secular apocalypses…her unillusioned eye makes her clarity compulsive.’

‘She drills into experience and comes up with such clean, precise distillations of life, once you read them they enter into you. Successive generations of writers have felt the keen influence of her work and for this reason Garner has become part of us all.’

‘Helen Garner’s collections of fiction and non-fiction corroborate her reputation as a great stylist and a great witness.’

Other editions ofHonour & Other People’s Children