The Feel of Steel
Garner, Helen

RRP
A$24.95

"Although I have been married three times, I have never been a bride. What - me, in a big white dress? In a veil? The closest I ever got to the fantasy was back in the eighties, when I used to admire the white gypsophila crowns that Susan Renouf wore to parties: I drew a curious satisfaction from their ethereal, circular, brow-pressing beauty. Twenty years later all that's left is the frisson I get from the coronet shape that salad leaves briefly take when I tip them out of the whizzer on to a tea towel."

Cities, friends, lost loves, Antarctica, the joy of being a grandmother, weddings, fencing... Such is the array of subjects in Helen Garner's second non-fiction collection. Some pieces were published in The Age, some are previously unpublished, but woven together they present as an evocative memoir, and offer a wonderfully personal portrait of an always unconventional talent.

In word-perfect and often hilarious prose, Helen Garner reminds us of the human condition, in all its various guises.

Author Information

Helen Garner was born in Geelong in 1942, and lives in Melbourne. Since her novel Monkey Grip appeared in 1977, she has published four more books of fiction and a great deal of journalism. Her recent books include the screen play for the movie The Last Days of Chez Nous, The First Stone, True Stories, Joe Cinque's Consolation and, forthcoming in 2008, The Gap in the Fence.