A brilliant essay by one of Australia's most exciting literary talents, which offers new insights into Garner's entire body of work and her life as a writer.<br/><br/>What I love, what I need, first in Helen Garner's writing is a particular kind of closeness to self - the good, greedy, mistaken, emotional, fierce, sceptical, changing and disrupting self ... But I also love that she's always fighting to come back, enough, as well- find enough of a law, a rule, a family, a home.<br/><br/>In a brilliantly argued and very personal essay, Sean O'Beirne looks at the whole of Helen Garner's writing life so far - from Monkey Grip to the recently published Diaries - while trying to come to terms with the demands, and the rewards, of Garner's extraordinary, radical individualism and honesty.<br/><br/>In the Writers on Writers series, leading authors reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative and crisp, these books start a fresh conversation between past and present, shed new light on the craft of writing, and introduce some intriguing and talented authors and their work.<br/>Published by Black Inc. in association with the University of Melbourne and State Library Victoria.