Helen Garner is a novelist of impeccable skill whose works I rarely warm to, in spite of admiring the prose on every page. So I was glad to enjoy The Children's Bach so much. It's a very short, naturalistic novel, simple in structure and tone, but layering a number of complex, ethically dubious lives on top of one another.

I can understand some of the negative reviews based on the context. Some people are ideological readers, and unable to separate their own ethics from those of characters. It's a condition especially prominent here in the early 21st century, in the age of auto-fiction, with many readers seeking novels that define their own ideology, seeing literature as a truth/lie binary rather than a mirror of non-truths reflecting our world. Such readers have their virtues, but are prone to assuming that the author shares the views of their characters unless the novel explicitly states otherwise. As I am stubbornly in the other category, I'm happy to follow Garner down this murky ethical rabbit hole. Prying into the lives of others will (hopefully) never go out of style. ( )

This is a brilliantly clever piece of literary fiction by Australian author Helen Garner which I read for our July Book Club read. It is a short, pithy story set in 1980s suburban Melbourne that examines the grittier side of urban family life.

Dexter and Athena Fox are a fairly ordinary couple, Dexter gregarious and optimistic, Athena a down-to-earth almost grim housewife and mother. An old friend of Dexter’s, the glamorous, independent Elizabeth (Morty) and her teenage sister Vicki enter their lives and the family dynamic shifts. The story presents a fairly nihilistic, desolate view of suburban life that investigates the selfishness and brutality of the characters. The hardest thing to read was Athena’s feelings towards their disabled, possibly autistic son, Billy, who she views as a lost cause with 'no one in there' and dreams of throwing under a bus.

A well-written but not overly cheery story that I’m sure will spark some great Book Club chats. 3.5 stars. ( )

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: from Netgalley
Set in suburban Melbourne in the early 1980s, The Children’s Bach centers on Dexter and Athena Fox, their two sons, and the insulated world they’ve built together. Despite the routine challenges of domestic life, they are largely happy. But when a friend from Dexter’s past resurfaces and introduces the couple to the city’s bohemian underground—unbound by routine and driven by desire—Athena begins to wonder if life might hold more for her, and the tenuous bonds that tie the Foxes together start to fray.

A literary institution in Australia, Helen Garner’s perfectly formed novels embody the tumultuous 1970s and 1980s. Drawn on a small canvas and with a subtle musical backdrop, The Children’s Bach is “a jewel” (Ben Lerner) within Garner’s revered catalogue, a beloved work that solidified her place among the masters of modern letters, a finely etched masterpiece that weighs the burdens of commitment against the costs of liberation.

from Goodreads
Helen Garner has been a literary institution in Australia for decades. Her perfectly formed novels embodied Australia’s tumultuous 70s and 80s, and her incisive nonfiction evokes the keen eye of the New Journalists. Dubbed “the Joan Didion of Australia.” Now, the beloved work that solidified her place among the masters of modern international letters, is available in a new US edition.

The Children's Bach follows Dexter and Athena Fox, a husband and wife who live with their two sons in the inner suburbs of early-1980s Melbourne. Dexter is gregarious, opinionated, and old fashioned. Athena is a dutiful wife and mother, stoic yet underestimated. Though their son’s disability strains the family at times, they appear to lead otherwise happy lives.

But when a friend from Dexter’s past resurfaces, she and her cast of beguiling companions reveal another world to Dexter and Athena: a bohemian underground, unbound by routine and driven by desire, where choice seems to exist independent of consequence. And as Athena delves deeper into this other kind of life, the tenuous bonds that hold the Fox family together begin to fray.

Painted on a small canvas and with a subtle musical backdrop, is “a jewel” among Garner’s revered catalog (Ben Lerner), a finely etched masterpiece that weighs the burdens of commitment against the costs of liberation.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: How times have changed in forty years! Athena's bald, bold statement, referring to her "retarded" son, "'I’ve abandoned him, in my heart,' said Athena. 'It’s work. I’m just hanging on till we can get rid of him.'" is so very, very out of step with modern sensibilities that I suspect it will cause some readers to bail out on the read.

I think that's a pity. The writing of this polyvocal récit (yes yes yes, Gotcha Gang, I know so please just put a sock in it) is as modern as Modernism itself, is as pure and imagined with such honesty that it should not be ignored over some nasty, unkind thoughts by a mother about her child.

It WILL bother you. I suspect, without proof, that it's meant to. I know no one in this story is meant to be a comfy PoV character like you fans of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge like to have. The Children's Bach is certainly in that domestic story genre. The characters are married, the events of the tale are within the marriage, the tone and tenor take little to no notice of anything outside the interests of the married partners. The others who appear in story are not interested in things outside Athena and Dexter's purview. It's a very closed world.

It doesn't exactly narrate itself to you, either. It's like song lyrics are, or some of the less-unbearable poetry is: Elliptical in the way it leaves you to go on the ride then build the tracks afterward. I really enjoy that in a read, though not in a LONG one, which makes this under-200-page story of domestic reality exactly the best length for the technique to be interesting and involving without overstaying its welcome.

What appeals to me the most about the read is the very unlikeability of Athena and Dexter. I know where I realized, like Rumaan Alam says in her Foreword, that I remember always where I was when I read, "She washed, she washed, she washed," though her moment was different from mine; but this is, like other Helen Garner books, the kind where the quotidian and the internal are polished well past the point of brummagem shininess into the glint of the knife that flenses you.

No, they aren't nice; they aren't pleasant; they aren't, by my standards anyway, good people. They're interesting, they're unbearably shallow and pretentious. Everyone in this story fails as a person in catalogable ways. This is proof if one needs it that the dismissive, condescending label "domestic fiction" is toothless in the face of Helen Garner's violent assault on domesticity, her ramming-into of the delimiting front door od The Family Home with her well-aimed ute/pickup truck.

But what a glorious car-crash it is. ( )

This is a story about how life happens to all of us.
Rumann Alam in the Forward to The Children’s Bach

The Forward by Rumann Alam in The Children’s Bach is fantastic. Alam notes the “exhilarating feeling” of reading this book, even if keeping the characters straight was an issue. “Sometimes fiction shows us reality with utter clarity,” Alam writes.

I read this short book in an evening.

Years after graduating from college, old friends Dexter and Elizabeth run into each other and learn they live close to each other in Melborune.

Dexter is an optimist, sociable, upbeat. His wife Athena appears to be a happy wife and mother. They have two sons, one with a developmental disability.

Elizabeth has a career and tolerates her lover’s frequent infidelity. He has a daughter, Poppy. Elizabeth also has a younger sister, Vicki, who comes to stay with her in her sparsely furnished warehouse apartment.

“Elizabeth disliked the past,” we are told, while Dexter was “mad about the past.” Athena is learning to play the piano. She has a music book, The Children’s Bach. Elizabeth dismisses the idea: Bach is never simple, she proclaims.

Athena imagines a home separate from the family and the chaos of her disabled son, a place where order rules. But to Vicki, Athena “seemed contained, without needs, never restless.” Vicki moves in with Dexter and Athena, helping with the children. She loves the garden and the homey environment.

The story of these people spins out in complicated ways, revealing underlying and unspoken issues that impact all their lives.

And when the crisis is over, they go on.

The novel reflects a truth that many will recognize. The secrets, the rash acts, the acceptance, the capitulation to suppressing needs.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book. ( )

An interesting set up, but a number of the characters are repellant, which limited my enjoyment in reading this novella. I love Helen Garner's books generally, but not sure I would have hung in on this one if it was a novel. ( )