Yesterday was Day One of the Australian Women Writers Challenge for 2012 – & the day I commenced with Helen Garner’s THE SPARE ROOM.
I’ve been meaning to read this for a long while: I loved THE CHILDREN’S BACK in the eighties as a gritty & honest look at motherhood & relationships, but then I lost faith in Garner over the whole THE FIRST STONE incident, where she criticised women students for accusations of sexual misconduct directed at a university lecturer. As a recent graduate at the time, well aware of some departmental reputations that had been ‘questionable’, I put Garner on the ‘enemy’ pile.
Last year a friend talked me into trying THE SPARE ROOM, so after a 20-year hiatus, I’m opening my mind up to Garner’s torturous realism yet again. Let’s see how I go, eh?