Monkey Grip

by Helen Garner

Book Overview

The novel that launched the career of one of Australia's greatest writers, following the doomed infatuations of a young, single mother, enthralled by the excesses of Melbourne's late-70s counterculture

The name Helen Garner commands near-universal acclaim. A master novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portraits of Australian life, often drawn from the pages of her...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553387456
• ISBN13: 9780553387452
• Release Date: February 2024
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Insight into addiction...to love.

This is a novel for gaining insight into life on a number of levels- It portrays inner city life in Australia as it was in the 1970's in shared households- It shows what happens to addicted people and how their addictions can direct them to obviously self-destructive behaviour but their awareness of where they headed is not necessarily constructive. That is, those addicted to love, to drugs or to everything really are consumed by their addiction. Beautiful, clear writing which rewards a reader with new ideas at every successive reading. One of the most meaningful books this reviewer has embraced. James Pope

Well, I love this book!

Maybe you have to be "of a certain age" and have lived through a certain time, with all its complexities, to appreciate this book. There was a lot of high and low life in the counter-culture, a lot of confusion, but there were some wonderful experiences to be had as well. I've read this book completely through about six times. I think of it as an old friend with which I will never part. I think her prose is breathtaking in its immediacy; it breathes life. Some of her descriptions of what she sees/hears/observes are so amazingly wonderful that I stop every time I read them to savor them a while before moving on. She is poetic in the true sense: not trying for an effect, but responding with her whole heart to a moment in such a way that your heart also is touched.