Book 67 - Helen Garner "The Children's Bach"
Dec. 21st, 2025 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzy_daveHelen Garner "The Children's Bach" (W&N Books)
This slim novel is set in Melbourne, Australia during the early 1980s. The opening chapter presents a longtime married couple, Dexter and Athena, with their two sons, one of whom has a severe neurodevelopmental disorder. Husband and wife are close, and after a tiring day of work and caring for their children, the couple take long walks together after dark. The domesticity of this family begins to unravel with the arrival of external forces. These arise from of a chance meeting with a friend from Dexter’s past, Elizabeth. Unlike the couple, she leads a bohemian lifestyle, and soon she introduces them to a rock musician friend, Philip, and to her much younger sister, Vicki. With these new people now a part of their lives, Dexter and Athena’s relationship undergoes subtle changes, ones that threaten to fracture the foundation of their marriage.
There is no one protagonist featured in the book. Events as they take place are told from a shifting cast of perspectives, primarily those of Dexter, Athena, Elizabeth and Vicki. What makes this novel special is Garner’s precision in capturing the inner thoughts of each one. None are portrayed as good or bad; rather they are shown to be coping with life as best they can. The Children’s Bach is short enough to be read in an evening, but the lovely prose is worth taking more time to savor. First published in Australia in 1984, it has since won a growing audience worldwide. My description of the story’s plot hardly does it justice. Helen Garner is an author worth getting to know, and this novel would be the perfect vehicle with which to do so
This slim novel is set in Melbourne, Australia during the early 1980s. The opening chapter presents a longtime married couple, Dexter and Athena, with their two sons, one of whom has a severe neurodevelopmental disorder. Husband and wife are close, and after a tiring day of work and caring for their children, the couple take long walks together after dark. The domesticity of this family begins to unravel with the arrival of external forces. These arise from of a chance meeting with a friend from Dexter’s past, Elizabeth. Unlike the couple, she leads a bohemian lifestyle, and soon she introduces them to a rock musician friend, Philip, and to her much younger sister, Vicki. With these new people now a part of their lives, Dexter and Athena’s relationship undergoes subtle changes, ones that threaten to fracture the foundation of their marriage.
There is no one protagonist featured in the book. Events as they take place are told from a shifting cast of perspectives, primarily those of Dexter, Athena, Elizabeth and Vicki. What makes this novel special is Garner’s precision in capturing the inner thoughts of each one. None are portrayed as good or bad; rather they are shown to be coping with life as best they can. The Children’s Bach is short enough to be read in an evening, but the lovely prose is worth taking more time to savor. First published in Australia in 1984, it has since won a growing audience worldwide. My description of the story’s plot hardly does it justice. Helen Garner is an author worth getting to know, and this novel would be the perfect vehicle with which to do so
