... sydney writers' festival - Helen Garner ...

Physically,Garner and her interlocutor, Caroline Baum, could not have been more different - although they strode similarly onto the stage which I took to be more in response to the grandness of the venue than anything else. How else does a diminutive, private, solitary writer react when confronted with a sell-out crowd in this imposing theatre? As the session progressed, however, Garner became a squirm of mannerisms that were most revealing - from sitting on the edge of the chair, to swinging her entire body, to clasping her hands outwards under her legs, to hunched shoulders in concentration. Squinched eyes, broad accent, ready intellect, self deprecating ripostes, broad accent. Not what I expected - but not surprising somehow. She is most engaging personally and her writing style was evident in her character.

Baum encouraged her to talk about The Spare Room, as well as her non-fiction work (The First Stone and Joe Cinques's Consolation) as well as her next non-fiction which from her brief description could very well be about the case in western Victoria where a father was convicted of driving his three sons into a dam where they each drowned. They discussed active verbs, paring adjectives and adverbs, attending court cases, encounters with detectives as well as old hippies, sex and alternative therapies. However, it was the nitty gritty of the writing that was most entrancing and Baum had managed to entice Garner into reading from one of her journals - a piece about a child screaming in a shopping centre and the cause and effect between parents, child and others. Garner calls this practice writing - which she does daily even when deep into a more extensive project. Her craft shone through when she said that when writing The Spare Room she would awake each morning thinking "Oh goodie, I am going to write x today".

Garner and Baum have obviously chatted before and have mutual respect and appreciation with Baum often letting fly with guffaws and peals in response to some of Garner's more outrageous - yet understated - yarns. I liked them both.

In my backpack, I had my copy of The Spare Room. I am not an autograph hunter - the book is the only trophy I need. However, at 6pm, as we clambered up the steps to take us from Walsh Bay over The Rocks to Circular Quay - I gave Kirsten my copy of the book which I had read bouncing between Coober Pedy and Oodnadatta. I received an SMS from her at 11am Sunday saying she had finished - once started she could not put it down.

Comments

[Julie]

I am looking around for a book club, too. But it has to be "just right" I am afraid. Do read The Spare Room - there are single sentences that took me an hour to progress onwards from!

[Jude]

At least I feel like I'm visiting the Writers' Festival through you, Julie. "The Spare Room" is on my must-read list, but I have joined a book group this year. I am quite a slow reader, so between reading for group discussions and trying to at least get to something on my list,well, all i can say is that the list grows longer rather than shorter!