The Spare Room: A Novel [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Helen Garner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2009

A powerful, witty, and taut novel about a complex friendship between two women—one dying, the other called to care for her—from an internationally acclaimed and award-winning author

How much of ourselves must we give up to help a friend in need? Helen has little idea what lies ahead—and what strength she must muster—when she offers her spare room to an old friend, Nicola, who has arrived in the city for cancer treatment. Skeptical of the medical establishment, and placing all her faith in an alternative health center, Nicola is determined to find her own way to deal with her illness, regardless of the advice Helen offers.

In the weeks that follow, Nicola’s battle for survival will turn not only her own life upside down but also those of everyone around her. The Spare Room is a magical gem of a book—gripping, moving, and unexpectedly funny—that packs a huge punch, charting a friendship as it is tested by the threat of death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Garner (Monkey Grip) employs her signature realism in this stunted novel about the infuriating and eye-opening experience of caring for a terminally ill loved one. Helen prepares a room in her Melbourne home for Nicola, an old friend who travels from Sydney to begin a course of alternative treatment for bowel cancer. The central conflict of the story centers around these treatments: Helen fears they may be doing more harm than good, while Nicola has undying faith in the unorthodox practices of the Theodore Institute (these revolve around vitamin C injections), leading Helen to question her ability to care for someone so deep in denial. Garner paints Nicola's unflinching optimism with a heavy hand, and her grand naïveté is unconvincing, a flaw that's hard to overlook in a novel about a cancer patient. As it wears on, the narrative becomes clouded by litanies of worsening symptoms and platitudes about death, and Helen's bickering about the treatment—while valid—become grating and tiresome. (Feb.)
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From The New Yorker

Following a Melbourne-based writer as she cares for a friend dying of cancer, this is the first work of fiction in sixteen years from an Australian writer whose accomplished early novels were overshadowed by the controversial publication, in 1995, of a decidedly post-feminist investigation into a sexual-harassment scandal. Here the author’s aims seem to shift in the course of the novel, which at times seems very close to nonfiction: the Garner-like protagonist, attending a writers’ festival in Sydney, observes, in apparent reference to J. M. Coetzee, how “the big names had scrambled to see the Nobel laureate get his Australian citizenship in a tent.” Nonetheless, the work gains focus from Garner’s characteristically controlled and unsentimental tone: the train station is “a seven-minute walk from my house, twenty if you had cancer.”
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 175 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (February 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805088881
• ISBN-13: 978-0805088885
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 6.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little book that packs a big punch., December 25, 2008

By 

sb-lynn (Santa Barbara, California United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Spare Room: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

The Spare Room is a short novel, and it can easily be read in one sitting. But just because it's short doesn't mean it doesn't pack a big punch - it does.

Summary in a nutshell, no spoilers:

The bulk of the story takes place over a 3 week period of time. Nicola, 65 years old, is near death from cancer and comes to visit her close friend Helen. Nicola is desperate for a cure and goes to a clinic with dubious credentials just because they promise her what no one else will - that they will rid her of the cancer.

Helen wants to help her friend but grows more and more frustrated with Nicola's refusal to face reality, both because she wants Nicola to be able to end her life well and say good-bye, and because Helen is stuck with round-the-clock care of Nicola because of the sick woman's refusal to get real help.

This is a touching, beautiful novel. We not only get to examine the relationship of these two women - one who raised a traditional family and one more bohemian - but we also see how they reflect on their lives and the choices they made. We also become observers of the aging and the existential angst of a generation that thought it would be forever young and vital.

I highly recommend this novel. It is short but not slight, and when you finish, you will feel like you've just read something much longer. I know I had a lot to think about when I turned that last page, as I examined my personal thoughts on my own aging and mortality, and the duty and true meaning of friendship.

The subject matter is serious and somber, yet the story is told with humor and wit.

Brava.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and disturbing yet brief....almost fleeting...., January 28, 2009

By 

busymama (atlanta, ga) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Spare Room: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I was impressed by how efficient this book was. It is a short novel and it seems almost purposefully so. The brevity of the story seems like a powerful tool for the author. The book spans a timeframe of about 3 weeks. Short, of course, yet also interminably long for the book's main character, Helen, who has willingly offered up her whole self, her whole life for these 3 brief weeks to come to the aid of a dying friend.

Helen begins the story with a resolute and positive attitude, hoping to do anything that she can to help her friend, Nicola, who is dying of cancer. She gives Nicola her spare room, shuttles her to cancer treatments, gets up continually in the night to help with the pain, the dirtied linens, etc. Yet soon, the three weeks begin to seem unbelievably long to her, and she wonders how she'll make it through. It's not just the exhaustion of being up all night with her friend day after day, though that is part of it. It's also the fact that her friend seems unwilling to accept that she is dying and insists upon undergoing treatments that seem to hurt rather than help. The two friends begin to have trouble communicating, and Helen begins to wear and sag under the burden of it all.

The author does a wonderful job of providing a sense of place and lifestyle for Helen before her friend comes to stay. I could really feel her longing for the simplicity and sunlight, the laughter and innocence of her grandchildren she had so recently enjoyed. Nicola's character, too, is strongly drawn....she almost seems like the person we almost wish we could have been. Yet who would want to be her now ?

The author not only shows us quite clearly the pain and angst that the cancer causes - not only for Nicola, but for those around her, but also provides us with a disturbing sense of guilt for not wanting to deal with it all. Helen is torn. She wants to help, yet she wants to be rid of it all and get back to her own life, too. I was disturbed by how selfish she sometimes seemed....after all, she only really had to deal with this for 3 weeks, and suddenly that seemed like too much. At other times, I related quite strongly to Helen, and wanted, with her, to shake some sense into the dying woman.

This disturbing pull of guilt vs. empathy, of selfishness vs. love, of the effect of cancer on everyone it touches, is exactly, I think, the author's intention, and is well crafted in such a small space. She didn't need more space to tell the story, and that seemed to be one of the book's charms.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and sad, February 8, 2009

By 

Another avid reader (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Spare Room: A Novel (Hardcover)

A terminally ill woman stays with a friend while undergoing medical treatment. This is the basic story of The Spare Room. Similar themes are the core feature of many chick flicks, the stuff that makes men wince. The Spare Room is not, however, a formulaic portrayal of female friendship. It is a painfully realistic examination of the havoc that disease plays on patients and caretakers. The novel touches on everything from minute details like selecting a rug for the patient's room, to broader issues, such as, accepting the inevitability of death.

Packed into this slim novel is a harsh look at the drastic measures a sick patient will take to rid herself of disease. Her near-delusional rationalization overrides common sense. The charlatans who profit from her desperation are portrayed unapologetically. The Spare Room is as much about medical ethics as it is about love. Author Helen Garner handles hot-button issues with grace and accuracy.

I was fascinated to read about the ways patients are treated in Australia. In some respects, the Australian medical system is better than that available to most Americans. For example, a new patient in a new city is able to schedule a same-day appointment with a specialist. In other aspects, some negative components are found in both countries. Jaded staff simply don't care that patients sit in waiting rooms for hours. Alternative therapies are outrageously expensive. Throughout the novel, one is reminded that the great doctors are those who actually pay attention to their patients.

The Spare Room is a must read for anyone caring for a loved one who has a serious illness.