Stories: The Collected Short Fiction

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • A New Yorker Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A finely etched collection of short stories from the "generous, category-defying imagination" (New York Times Book Review) of Helen Garner, one of Australia's most beloved writers

"Perceptive and virtuosic . . . . these visceral, incandescent stories treat us to Garner’s companionable brilliance.”—The New York Times Book Review

A woman sends postcards to a former lover from the idyllic Gold Coast. A chorus of hometown voices gossip about a wayward friend returned. A young girl discovers a hidden box of horrors.

Helen Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portraits of Australian life. Now, in Stories, comes the collected short fiction of a singular literary voice. These stories delve into the complexities of love and longing, of the pain, darkness, and joy of life, and all told with Garner's characteristic sharpness, honesty, and humor. Each one is a perfect piece, but together they showcase a rare talent and a master of many literary forms.

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 Literature Prize for Non-fiction. In 2019 she was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. Her books include Monkey Grip, The Children’s Bach, Cosmo Cosmolino, The Spare Room, The First Stone, This House of Grief, Everywhere I Look, and her diaries Yellow Notebook, One Day I’ll Remember This, and How to End a Story, published in the United States as the one-volume How to End a Story.