While reading Helen Garner’s, Yellow Notebooks, journal entries from 1978 to 1987, I was inspired to revisit some of the acclaimed author’s early fiction from the same era. I unearthed Honour and Other People’s Children from my bookshelf – two novellas that paint portraits of disorderly domestic life in Australian suburbia.

‘Honour’, the shorter of the two, tells the story of Katherine and Frank who have long been amicably separated and are now finally proceeding to divorce on account of Frank’s new partner, Jenny. Told from the alternating perspectives of Katherine and Jenny, we witness the precarious balance of their unconventional family unit, tied together by Frank and Katherine’s young daughter, Flo.

The portrayal of Katherine and Flo’s relationship is perhaps the most affecting, a tender bond, captured through crisp dialogue and closely observed moments.

‘Other People’s Children’ connected less. Garner takes us into the world of two women sharing a home and co-parenting two children. The women, once firm friends who shared laughter and meals, now trade barbed words and passive-aggressive notes. The children fight incessantly.

Nowadays, Garner is celebrated for her lean, expressive prose, but Honour and Other People’s Children feels unusually overwritten and even a little flavourless. Nonetheless, it still flickers with sharp insight, wry humour and indisputable talent.

Reviewed by Emma Harvey