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This House of Grief

by Helen Garner

Narrator Kate Hood

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Length 8 hours 58 minutes

Language English

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Summary
About the author
About the narrator

Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain.

On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father’s Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner’s obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the final verdict.

In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience – all gathered to witness to the truth – players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice.

True Crime Nonfiction

Helen Garner was born in 1942 in Geelong and educated at the University of Melbourne. She worked as a high school teacher until her first novel Monkey Grip was published in 1977. It was an instant success, winning a National Book Council award in 1978 and becoming a film in 1982. Since then she has written full-time, publishing novels, short stories, essays, journalism and long-form non-fiction. In 2006, Garner was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Literature, in 2016 the international Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction, in 2019 the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature and in 2020 the Lloyd O’Neil Award for Services to the Australian Book Industry at the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA). Most recently, Garner was awarded the 2023 ASA Medal by the Australian Society of Authors for her outstanding contribution to Australian culture.

Kate Hood is one of Bolinda's most popular narrators and receives regular praise from listeners, authors and reviewers alike. Her seamless delivery and outstanding characterisations make the most extraordinary stories even more compelling. Kate has worked extensively in radio and in television both in Australia and New Zealand. Her theatre credits include Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, Chicago and Sweet Charity. Bolinda audiobooks narrated by Kate include Tears of the Moon by Di Morrissey (winner of an AudioFile magazine Earphones Award), Turn Left at Bindi Creek by Lynne Wilding and Craft for a Dry Lake by Kim Mahood.