The Spare Room chronicles the experience of a novelist named Helen whose Melbourne life is upended when Nicola, an old friend in the final stages of terminal cancer, arrives for an extended visit. Although the book is labeled a novel, the connection between the characters and situations the book describes mirrors real events in Garner’s life, calling into question the nature of its fiction (to the consternation of several critics when The Spare Room was published). Regardless, the frankness of the telling is revelatory: Helen’s impatience with Nicola’s faith in the quack course of treatment that has brought her from Sydney, Nicola’s indulgence of her own desperation, and the harsh realities of disease, friendship, and looming mortality are rendered with striking candor, whether the emotion of the moment be anger or tenderness.
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