The Children's Bach

May 1, 2023

Pompous Dexter and quietly efficient Athena Fox lead a staid life in the environs of early 1980s Melbourne, attending to two sons, one with disabilities. Then an old friend of Dexter resurfaces and introduces them to the city's bohemian underground, and Athena in particular is drawn to the possibilities of a free and passionate new life. From a top Australian author and one of the publisher's lead titles of the year. Prepub Alert.

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August 1, 2023
In late-1970s suburban Melbourne, a cluster of family and friends is disrupted by shifting allegiances. This new edition of the short 1984 novel many consider the eminent Australian author's masterpiece has a foreword by Rumaan Alam in which he admits to having a hard time encapsulating its virtues. In the end, he cedes the mic to Garner herself, quoting from her diary: "The best I can do is to write books that are small but oblique enough to stick in people's gullets so that they remember them." This small, oblique, and gullet-sticking book circles around a group of nine people: Dexter and Athena Fox; their children, Billy, who has a developmental disability, and Arthur; Dexter's long-ago ex Elizabeth, who in the wake of her mother's death has been joined by her teenage sister, Vicki; Elizabeth's sort-of boyfriend, a rocker named Philip; and Philip's daughter, Poppy. In brief scenes, the perspective of the novel flits around the group from one shoulder to the next, often not making it immediately clear which characters are involved. This elusiveness inspires careful reading and works to closely focus attention on the key issue of how each character understands and misunderstands the others. For example: "Athena's life was mysterious to Vicki. She seemed contained, without needs, never restless." Young Vicki is going to be quite surprised when Athena's needs and restlessness drive her to an action that affects everyone in the group. Garner gives a master class in her own technique with some advice musician Philip offers an aspiring songwriter: "Take out the clich�s....Just leave in the images. Know what I mean? You have to steer a line between what you understand and what you don't. Between clich� and the other thing. Make gaps. Don't chew on it. Don't explain everything. Leave holes. The music will do the rest." There are continual references to music in this book, but it's the music of the prose and the hyperlucid imagery that "do the rest" here. One small example--as Athena and Elizabeth's friendship becomes ever more complicated due to shifting relationships with men, the two of them collaborate to fold a sheet coming off the clothesline, passing it by the corners, one relinquishing, one accepting, as "the light left the garden." Brilliantly constructed and puzzling in a good way, the way that even our own lives can be puzzling to us.

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September 8, 2023
Athena and Dexter are living a humdrum life in 1970s Melbourne when the tedium of their drab world is upended by Dexter's vivacious old flame, Elizabeth, and her younger sister, Vicki. Vicki has moved in with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth has neither the room nor the inclination to tend to her sister, so she fobs her off on Athena and Dexter, ostensibly as a nanny for their youngest son, who copes with an unspecified disability. Elizabeth also manages to drag her sometime-lover, Philip, into the fray, and with him his precocious teenage daughter, Poppy. This disparate cast of characters weave in and out of each other's lives with the randomness of circumstance. Identities and roles are malleable as relationships are pushed to the brink and conventions are discarded. In this new edition of Garner's original 1984 Australian publication, American readers are afforded the opportunity to delve into the acclaimed Australian author's signature themes in which casually caustic worlds collide and middle-class morals are eviscerated with an economy of language but an abundance of clarity.

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