This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial

"Helen Garner went to the trial of a man in Australia who stood accused of murdering his sons by driving his car into a dam. He claimed he’d blacked out and that it was an accident, but he was charged with having deliberately killed his children in an act of anger and revenge. Garner documents the trial in great detail, but she’s also documenting the shifting currents of her own feelings about the case, about the man on trial, about his family, his marriage. She seems to almost uncannily intuit the changing moods in the courtroom. It’s very rigorous and very moving. You sense the inadequacy of a court to deal with these kinds of morally fraught and highly charged emotional stories—but the necessity of there being this process of justice. She teases all that out, and you are with her in the courtroom, witnessing what’s happening and interrogating your own feelings about it as you go along. The suspense of the book is about what will happen in the trial. Will he be found guilty? Did he murder them or was it manslaughter? But it’s also about how you feel about the individuals in the case. It’s incredibly candid and intense. Yes, we get a verdict, and then the reactions to the verdict. There is resolution, but it’s a resolution in a court of law. The emotional resolution, what this all means and what we feel about it, rests with us as the readers."