Description
''A jewel of a novel about a perfect family falling apart''
DAVID NICHOLLS
''The Children''s Bach is Garner''s masterpiece''
PUBLIC BOOKS
''A perfect novel. I was so stunned that I wanted to run around the block''
RUMAAN ALAM
Athena and Dexter Fox are happy. They love each other. They are friends.
They live with their young sons in a sparsely furnished house near the Merri Creek: its walls cracking, its floors sloping and its doors hanging loosely in their frames. There is a piano in their kitchen.
But then, one day - years after their lives have taken different directions - Dexter runs into Elizabeth, an old friend from his university days. She brings into his world her loose-living musician boyfriend, Philip, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Vicki.
And all at once, the bonds that hold the Fox family together begin to fray.
Helen Garner''s perfectly formed novels embody Melbourne''s tum
