Stories: The Collected Short Fiction by Helen Garner
Stories: the Collected Short Fiction contains some of Australian author Helen Garner’s best known short stories. There wouldn’t be too many Australian readers of a certain age who haven’t read Postcards from Surfers or My Hard Heart, both of which are in this collection.
The only fiction I’d read by Helen Garner prior to this collection was Monkey Grip, which I found too grungy for my tastes. While I didn’t finish Monkey Grip, I appreciated the author’s unpretentious and honest writing style and after reading Everywhere I Look, a collection of essays and extracts from the author’s diaries I decided to try her fiction again.
Most of these short stories had an autobiographical feel, including A Happy Story. The narrator buys two tickets for her teenage daughter to see a rock band and is unwillingly roped into attending the concert when none of her daughter’s friends can go. Luckily, the narrator’s sister says she will take the other ticket and the narrator enjoys a happy trip home listening to classical music through her car’s radio. This story is set in Melbourne, and although the Entertainment Centre is now the Collingwood Football Club’s headquarters, the familiarity of the setting is there. The band playing was Talking Heads, which firmly set the story in a particular time.
Postcards from Surfers is from the 1970s and is an Australian classic. A woman flies up to Coolangatta to stay with her parents and her aunt on the Gold Coast, back when the developers couldn’t sell apartments in their brand new high rises. The woman’s backstory is told in a series of postcards to a former lover named Philip. Reading between the lines, I didn’t think the narrator was over Philip…
Little Helen’s Sunday Afternoon also has an autobiographical feel. Little Helen is a fish out of water, too young to understand her mother and aunt’s conversation and humor. After being sent to play with her cousin Noah, Little Helen will probably be scarred forever after being shown horrific photos of maimed and deformed children.
The narrator in The Life of Art tells little stories about her friend which together make a whole story. The following one made me laugh, because it is true!
My friend came off the plane with her suitcase. ‘Have you ever notices,’ she said, ‘how Australian men, even in their forties, dress like small boys? They wear shorts and thongs and little stripy T-shirts.’
Civilisation and its Discontents stars another character named Philip. I knew I was right when I said the narrator (author?) in Postcards from Surfers wasn’t over Philip.
I preferred Helen’s Garner’s essays and non-fiction to her fiction so plan to read more of these in future. I don’t expect to agree with or like everything she writes, but I like that she is an author who isn’t afraid to say what she thinks.