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A review by nina_reads_books
Everywhere I Look by Helen Garner
4.0
Ok finally I have read my first Helen Garner! I can now completely see why she is so well loved as a writer.
Everywhere I Look is a series of essays spanning around fifteen years of Garner’s writing career. They range from personal diary entries to essays unpacking serious crimes. They touch on Garner’s role as a mother and grandmother before flipping to an account of her watching every single Russell Crowe movie and her differing opinions of each. She devotes an essay to her friendship with Tim Winton and others to her brief interactions with other authors. At times they are written in the present and others look back at her earlier life.
I was astounded by her observational talent. She is witty and at times almost caustic in her descriptions of the events around her. She is both insightful looking inwards and cleverly able to analyse the world around her. The moments where she has eavesdropped on others around her and used those moments to form an essay are so astute. I loved the little anecdotes about her young grandchildren.
Helen Garner is now in her seventies and the words in this book published in 2016 had all the hallmarks of a woman past caring what others think. I feel pretty lucky though that I get to peruse her back catalogue now that I have discovered her work.
Everywhere I Look is a series of essays spanning around fifteen years of Garner’s writing career. They range from personal diary entries to essays unpacking serious crimes. They touch on Garner’s role as a mother and grandmother before flipping to an account of her watching every single Russell Crowe movie and her differing opinions of each. She devotes an essay to her friendship with Tim Winton and others to her brief interactions with other authors. At times they are written in the present and others look back at her earlier life.
I was astounded by her observational talent. She is witty and at times almost caustic in her descriptions of the events around her. She is both insightful looking inwards and cleverly able to analyse the world around her. The moments where she has eavesdropped on others around her and used those moments to form an essay are so astute. I loved the little anecdotes about her young grandchildren.
Helen Garner is now in her seventies and the words in this book published in 2016 had all the hallmarks of a woman past caring what others think. I feel pretty lucky though that I get to peruse her back catalogue now that I have discovered her work.