(1942- )
Helen
Garner took her Honours degree in Arts from the University of Melbourne
in 1965.
Employment as a teacher ended in furore when she was dismissed from
Fitzroy High School in 1972 for her frankness in discussing sexual matters
and her use of what was alleged to be 'gutter language' with her students.
In the 1970s, Garner published in journals including The Digger and
Vashti's Voice and worked with the Women's Theatre Group.
Her first novel, Monkey Grip, appeared in 1977. This story of a young
single mother and her heroin-addicted lover in Carlton won the 1978
National Book Council Award and was filmed in 1982. The Children's Bach,
rated by some critics among the 10 best Australian novels of the 20th
century, won the 1986 South Australian Premier's Award and, in the same
year, Postcards from Surfers took out the NSW Premier's Award.
Garner has successfully written both fiction and non-fiction. Considerable
controversy attended the 1995 publication of The First Stone: Some Questions
about Sex and Power, an examination of allegations of misconduct in
a University college. Most recently she has published The Feel of Steel
(2001). Garner's journalism is notable for its range of subjects - from
her baby granddaughter's fascination with a beaded bracelet to a post-mortem
examination in the morgue - and its minutely observed, passionately
conveyed detail. Her screenplays are The Last Days of Chez Nous and
Two Friends.
Garner's daughter, Alice Garner, is a historian, musician, community
activist and actor. At the age of nine she played the heroine's daughter
in Monkey Grip and has since appeared in films, including the campus
comedy Love and Other Catastrophes, and television series, among them
Sea Change and The Secret Life of Us and on stage with the Melbourne
Theatre Company. Her Melbourne PhD studied the history of representations
of sea and shore in south-western France.
