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.

I received a complimentary electronic copy of this short Australian novel from Netgalley, author Helen Garner, and publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor-Pantheon. I have read The CHildren's Bach of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. It is a classic I have missed over the years, so am glad to have been exposed to it, but I was far more depressed at its closing than I was before I started it. Life is hard. But it has its perks.

Set in suburban Melbourne in the early 1980s, we follow the Fox family, Athena, and Dexter, and their two children, Arthur and Billy. Billy is very definitely deep in the autistic spectrum. Into that mix, we add Dexter's childhood friend Elizabeth, Not seen since college, her current fellow Phillip, and Elizaeth's child Poppy. Originally published in 1984, The Child's Bach was reissued in 2018 and as you can see by the reviews, it is either loved or - not. I sort of loved it. In my 76 years I have known the odd Athena and several Dexters, two Phillips, and one Elizabeth. I was lucky enough to know them all in different ages, and different U.S. states. Also lucky enough to leave them all behind... Which might account for my 4-star review. It is, alas, a life we can all find sympathy with. Lessons learned.

This novel is beautifully written and was originally written by the author (who is Australian) in the 1980s. It is poetic in its capturing of the lives of one married couple and their children. I don't think it is a book that everyone will appreciate, but I would recommend this for fans of domestic literary fiction and fans of Helen Garner, of course. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner was over my head.
To many adults and their emotions or lack of emotions, with children added into the mixture for empathy.
It was to easy to keep putting down and for me not want to come back to finish reading. I did finish reading it, though it took me days to make myself keep reading.
I never felt myself get invested in the story and there lies my problem.

Wanted to like this more.
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

“The Children’s Bach” is a quick, lovely novel about daily life in an Australian family by Australian legend Helen Garner, . Athena feels like an emotional center for the novel (which changes perspectives frequently); I’m not sure if she gets more time than other characters do, but it felt that way to me. She’s the mother of the family and the second wife of Dexter (who one sort of can’t stand but also loves anyway). The family unit, which includes Athena and Dexter’s children, Billy and Arthur, expands to include Elizabeth, Dexter’s first wife; her younger sister, Vicki; and Elizabeth’s ostensible boyfriend Phillip, along with his daughter Poppy.

It’s striking that Garner is very frank about the difficulties of caring for a child who appears to be on the autism spectrum, although I did feel the presentation was dated and often very unkind—I felt conflicted about the honest portrayal of the difficulty this family has with a member they find it difficult to connect in (great) and the fact that no one ever seems to have anything kind to say about him (much less great), and that often he seems more like an obstacle than a person; that tension felt real to me throughout the novel, and while I hoped for some kind of wrap-up that would make me feel more comfortable about the situation, there wasn’t one. I don't mean by any of this to enter into any kind of thinking that implies the thoughts of characters must be the thoughts of the author—a distinction which is very important to me—but I think I felt very put-off by the lack of empathy on the part of the novel, itself, for Billy. It's something I'll be interested to think more about when I reread, but I didn't seem to find evidence that his personhood was something the novel was invested in; I'm open to being wrong about that.

All of that being said, I think the writing is stellar; it feels deeply human and distinctly 20th century somehow. There were many passages I saved while reading and will return to; Garner has a keen eye for psychology, made all the more impressive since the close-third-person narration so frequently switches centers.

Acute writing about the struggles and complexities of family and relationships, about the daily business of being alive. A novel I will no doubt return to.

I received an electronic ARC from Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor through NetGalley.
An interesting read though none of the characters are completely likeable. Garner introduces a set of people who interact with each other in almost random styles. The entire book reads as short vignettes linked to the others. They are detached from themselves and each other and no one works to gain goals and accomplishments. I'm especially appalled at how the young autistic child is treated. Granted it is part of the author's choice to model how detached they all are from building relationships but this was too far for me. This is one I'm glad I read but it left me unattached from the characters too.

I started reading The Children’s Bach the day I got it. It was a promising start, but it did not take long before I was so lost in it that I had to start over from the beginning. I struggled reading the entire book. I was never really sure what was happening. I know there are readers that will love this book but for me it was not fun or enjoyable way to spend my reading time.
Thank you NetGalley and Helen Garner for the ARC of The Children’s Bach. This is my personal review.

This reissue of an Australian novel originally published in 1984 is, well, confounding. Those looking for a clear plot should go elsewhere. This is the story, sort of, of a family with music throughout. Regrettably, it just wasn't for me. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I know I should have enjoyed this but over to fans of literary fiction with more patience than I have,

Originally published in 1984, The Children's Bach covers a lot of ground for a slim volume. With the reprinting (featuring a foreword by author Rumaan Alam) comes a new generation and a new audience. And The Children's Bach feels very much a product of its time.

Garner presents her characters like figures coming down a runway, they are action and movement with a little description of them as they pass and repass before the next character's walk demands your eye. The very nature of trying to describe the small group peopling the novella feels gossipy — like Gladys Kravitz at her most calm describing the witchery she's witnessed. Athena and Dexter are a married couple with two small kids living in Melbourne. Dexter being some version of chaotic stasis and Athena being the more malleable — either through direct willingness or a relinquishing of herself to the current. As outside forces break into their world, the pair are drawn into the world happening outside their small, contained bubble, impacting their ideals and relationship.

Part of the invasion from the outside is an old college friend of Dexter's named Elizabeth and her younger sister Vicki. Elizabeth randomly bumps into Dexter while he's out eating with his father and younger son who is mentally disabled in some way that is never clearly defined by today's standards. This is actually the area of the story that suffers the most from the current way of addressing the disabled, particularly children. The are some startlingly harsh comments made in a very offhand way about the child and his capabilities. I found it really off-putting and distracting. Despite the fact that the story focuses a good deal on how he can mainly only be reached through music, as he's nonverbal and far from neurotypical, the language used in the narrative and by the characters is dated at best and disgusting at worst.

Into Dexter's carefully contained life with Athena and their two sons, comes Elizabeth, her sister Vicki, and Elizabeth's no-good-but-still-good musician boyfriend Philip — and into the mix on occasion is Philip's pre-teen daughter, Poppy. Chaos and disruption ensue. An interesting point is that, while you'd think Elizabeth would be a main agitator to their seemingly happy married life, she proves to be just a side note and the bringer of the real turmoil as Vicki and Philip arrive in her wake.

It's difficult to pull the main themes and motifs from this work due to its style and delivery. The interwoven ideas with music at the heart of change, communication, and connection is an interesting idea, but suffers from a fenced-in narrative and rapid-fire scenes. The dialog in particular is incredibly choppy and disconnected in the staccato way Garner writes.

There's an almost dreamlike quality to the fuzzy way the events play out — like when you try and recount your dream, and you know it made sense when it was a dream, but you never quite knew how you got from Point A to Point B because in the dream, it just happened and it doesn't really matter. But in the relaying of the dream, you slowly realize it doesn't make sense — so you skim around until you get to the stuttering scenes of dialog that are most important.

In the narrative of such a short book, I wish the spaces between those moments had been better filled in and smoothed out. I do realize part of that distance was just the writing style at the time of its original publication and part is simply Garner's personal writing method, but the lack of breathing room and a concrete foundation hampered the characters' development on the page. While these characters were distinct and mostly well-developed, they could've had a bit more nuance to truly feel like fully-fleshed-out people.

The Children's Bach
Helen Garner
October 10, 2023

Having not read any of Garnerś books I had no idea of the kind of novels she has written. While delving into this story of middle class domesticity in suburban Melbourne, Dexter and Athena Fox are bogged down with his past mistakes. Athena does her best at being a housewife but with the burdens of raising a young boy with many mental problems life becomes rather ugly.
The Children's Bach will be published by Pantheon Books of Random House on October 10, 2023. I was able to read and review Helen Garnerś latest novel via NetGalley. The book was not what I was expecting, frankly not sure what that would be. Having to reread some sections to keep on track I felt that perhaps I delved into something I shouldn't have. Those readers who enjoy her work will be able to respond better than I could. I accepted the chance to read her latest ARC then felt I let them down some when I just could not figure out its message. Please do not skip this book because of my lack of pleasure. Try it, you will probably enjoy her tale more than I.

The Children's Bach is a small but powerful gem of a book by Australian author, Helen Garner, written in the 1980s but never published in the U.S. until now. The story centers around Dexter and Athena, a married couple with 2 children, whose typical suburban life is upended when Dexter's ex-girlfriend Elizabeth turns up one day. Garner's writing is captivating and a bit disorienting, as the narrative shifts perspective frequently. She manages to intimately convey the characters' innermost thoughts and desires, and the realities of daily life, with humor and humanity. I really enjoyed this one, and I hope to read more of Garner's work in the future. Highly recommend.

A very poetic telling of life.
Dexter and Athena at one end of a life with their two boys. Phillip, Poppy, Elizabeth and Vicki appearing and life begins to change. What a tangled web they have weaved.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This book was really a 2-star for me as far as enjoyment of plot, but the writing itself was sooooo exquisite I had to give it another star .
I received an ARC of the newest edition from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

After reading twenty pages, I'm very confused about who the narrator is, and what timeline we're in with every turn of the page! I keep going and get more and more confused with who is who and where they are in the story. This is truly a unique writing style. Unfortunately, it's not for me.
The opening scene was so promising!

This is an odd book that took me a while to get used to in terms of format as it seems to jump around a lot with no "clear" plot. Initially we meet Dexter and Athena, a married couple with two sons--one of whom has an unnamed "condition." Then Dexter's ex, Elizabeth and younger sister Vicki are introduced and the plot thickens. It's a family drama that is very well-written but lacks a cohesiveness that makes it difficult to follow if you are looking for a conventional story. I did enjoy it but found myself working really hard to "get it" so know that going in.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

I was introduced to Helen Garner’s work through “This House of Grief,” her idiosyncratic journalistic account of an Australian murder trial published in 2014. While Garner’s reportage is compelling, it didn’t prepare me for the reissue of her short novel, “The Children’s Bach,” which is a masterpiece in miniature, an account of the unfulfilled lives of a circle of friends set in the 1980s. Garner is a writer of sublime fiction. The mechanics of this work, the narrative and dialogue, are pitch-perfect, and Garner deploys some deft storytelling surprises. The term that best applies to her meditation on the sad beauty of the human condition is “timeless.” An advance copy of the reissue of Garner’s highly recommendable book was provided to me by NetGalley, and I’m grateful for the substantial pleasure this book provided.

I just finished reading, "The Children's Bach". I am totally confused. The whole book seems like the ramblings of someone who can't quite put their thoughts together. I could never quite understand what the story was all about or where the author was going; what the point was that she was trying to make. Sometimes the narrator seemed to switch on the same page! Without warning! Was this a work that could be called, " stream of consciousness"? I don't know. In any event, I didn't really enjoy this book, I'm sorry to say. And I cannot recommend it.

I'll admit that I had not heard of Helen Garner before receiving this book, despite her celebrity in Australia. A writer of both fiction and non-fiction, you can really see how the two genres intersect in The Children's Bach.

Dexter and Athena are living a simple, domestic life. Their chief concern is their son Billy, who has some sort of unexplained disability, but even that seems relegated to the background (with the exception of Athena's total rejection of her son). The cover is torn off of their domestic bliss with the arrival of Elizabeth, a friend from Dexter's past, and her bohemian connections. Suddenly, both Dexter and Athena are pulled into a new world, separate from the one they previously inhabited with disastrous results.

Garner has a unique way of storytelling, jumping around from scene to scene at will. This can make the story hard to follow, but it is well-worth sticking with. Between the jumps, she provides pithy commentary on domestic life and its adherents like Dexter and Athena. She doesn't go into great detail on any character or event, but you still get a sense of them all and the journey they go on over the course of the book.

In Alam's forward to the book, he questions who the main character of the story is, proposing that it is Dexter. Indeed, Dexter is always in the background, even when he is not in the scene. He is the center point around which everyone else revolves, for better or for worse. He is arguably most affected by the events and goes on the most transformative journey, eventually rejecting the idea of modern life entirely.

This is a book that I feel like I need to read again, just to savor the language and the story. I don't think the style will work for everyone, but it was perfect for me and the type of books I enioy.

I had heard that Helen Garner was a literary institution in Australia, and had been for years, so I was quite eager to read this. Unfortunately, it definitely was not my cup of tea.

I was intrigued by the premise and thought that the characters, especially Dexter and Athena, were portrayed well. However, it seemed as though the storyline was tidbits of various observations, strung together into a narrative of sorts that was confusing and rambling at times. It read to me more like a hodgepodge of events than a novel with a concrete plot.

Although I will definitely give Helen Garner another go, this novel just did not do it for me at all.