How to End a Story

‘The real value of this collection is the opportunity it affords us to see the domestic, ordinary, everyday world through Garner’s eyes.’ * Washington Post *
‘This diary begins by registering what is ordinary, how days are, what it is like to be a writer, a daughter, a mother, a lover, a citizen of Melbourne.’ * Colm Tóibín *
‘I revere Helen Garner’s writing, and it’s in her diaries that she’s at her acute, rigorous, pitch-perfect best.’ * Nigella Lawson *

‘What a wonderful writer. Her prose is spare and beautiful…There are very few writers that I admire more.’

* David Nicholls *
‘A voice of great honesty and energy.’ * Anne Enright *
‘Garner has an ideal voice to express late-night pangs of precariousness and distress, some more comic than others. Her prose is clear, honest, and economical.’ * New York Times Book Review *
‘Garner’s honesty and her refusal to take things at face value, even when she cannot see what’s right before her eyes, give her work enormous power…Even if you already know her work, I think you’ll devour the diaries.’ * Washington Independent Review of Books *
‘Very well might be the finest literary diaries since Virginia Woolf’s…Told with devastating honestly, steel-sharp wit and an ecstatic attention to the details of everyday life, How to End a Story offers all the satisfactions of a novel alongside the enthralling intimacy of something written in private and just for pleasure.’ * Daunt Books [UK] *
‘These three volumes of Garner’s diaries, which span from 1978 to 1998, shows the Australian writer grappling with the vicissitudes of daily life: aging, big loves, creative and professional elations and frustrations, housekeeping, literary world rivalries, everyday fashion, thorny friendships, and making art. She thinks better than almost anyone.’ * W Magazine *
‘A devastating and engrossing portrait of passion, artistic conundrums, motherhood, rage, resignation… leaves you drunk with awe.’ * Maria Semple *
‘Every single page contains a passage of such distilled acuity and brilliance, it leaves you half drunk with exhilaration … These are the greatest, richest journals by a writer since Virginia Woolf’s.’ * Rachel Cooke, Observer *
‘The great Australian writer’s masterpiece … As propulsive and thrilling as any domestic noir.’ * The Times *
‘With sharp eyes and ears, Garner is a recording angel at life’s secular apocalypses.’ * James Wood, New Yorker *
‘Entrancing. I will return to these diaries for the rest of my days.’ * Charlotte Wood *
‘If you’ve yet to convince anyone in your life of Garner’s unique genius, here’s their Christmas present sorted.’ * Guardian *
‘A privilege to read.’ * Readings *
‘A vital, warts-and-all portrait of a truly great writer at work and one of the most engaging, heartfelt depictions of marital collapse ever committed to print.’ * Daunt Books *
‘By turns dazzling, poignant and very, very funny.’ * Economist *
‘One of the world’s greatest writers.’ * Avenue Bookstore *
‘Feels urgent on every page.’ * Observer *
‘Have any writer’s journals since Virginia Woolf’s felt so vital?’ * Australian Book Review *
‘An extraordinary work.’ * Irish Times *
‘Compulsive reading.’ * Colm Tóibín, Irish Times *
‘Raw, incisive and, as she puts it, “bareknuckle”. I can’t wait to pour over them with a fellow reader.’ * Dua Lipa *
‘An intimate set of reflections on writing, love, friendship, ethics, landscape and the torments of a failing marriage.’ * Blake Morrison, New Statesman *
‘Flinty brilliance.’ * New Statesman *
‘Utterly moreish.’ * Guardian [Best memoirs and biographies of 2025] *
‘Absolutely jaw-dropping.’ * Natasha Poliszczuk *
‘Brutally candid, exquisitely measured…gorgeous.’ * Spectrum Culture (US) [Our Favorite Books of 2025] *
‘What a privilege to have this book.’ * Lucy Clark, Guardian (Best Australian Books of 2025) *
‘I am reading Helen Garner’s diaries, and they’re amazing. I have them by my bed, and they’re huge thick volumes you can kind of dip in and out of. She is a very brilliant Australian novelist, and she’s published her diaries from the 1970s and 80s. They’re just little tiny vignettes and observations from her days. At one point, she says that she’s writing the best things and the worst things in her diary. She writes so beautifully. Her novels are beautiful, but her diaries are fascinating and very, very moving.’ * Maggie O’Farrell *
‘An indelible work of art, soaring and symphonic. Garner calls it a ‘record of soul’, a tribute to life’s many frustrations and pleasures, its toils and sparks of joy. It is also the best thing she has written.’ * Australian Book Review *
‘She is a genius.’ * Zadie Smith *
‘I have never encountered a writer who can harness and describe emotion quite like she does.’ * New York Times *
‘When I’m reading this Garner book [the diaries], I’m thinking this is one of the greatest experiences of my life.’ * Zadie Smith *