How To End a Story: Collected Diaries by Helen Garner review – the greatest journals since Virginia Woolf’s
The Australian writer’s decision to publish her diaries in her own lifetime – subjecting herself to scorching observations on self-doubt and unravelling marriages – makes for a wonderfully rich and rewarding read
Rachel Cooke
Monday 17 March 2017
When I began reading Helen Garner’s How to End A Story: Collected Diaries, about to be published in Britain for the first time, I kept copying little pieces of them into the book that I keep on my desk. Here was something that was beautiful, and there was something that was wise: unable to let these jewels go, my pen scratched on and on. At a certain point, however, I had to give up. These journals run to more than 800 pages, every single one of which contains a passage of such distilled acuity and brilliance, it leaves you half drunk with exhilaration. At this rate, I thought, I’m going to end up writing out half the bloody book.