This House of Grief

February 23, 2015
In this emotionally overwrought and dramatic account, Australian author Garner (The Spare Room) recounts her time following the trial of Robert Farquharson, a single father accused of killing his three sons by driving off the road and into a dam on Sept. 4, 2005 (Father’s Day in Australia). As Farquharson stands by his innocence, claiming a blackout due to a rare coughing condition, the state mounts a damning case against him, leading to an initial guilty verdict and a subsequent retrial. Garner is there for every step, coloring the proceedings with her own opinions and experiences. But it’s never entirely clear why Garner is so obsessed with this case, and why she feels the need to filter the information through her perceptions. “When I said I wanted to write about the trial, people looked at me in silence, with an expression I could not read,” she states. Upon visiting the graves of the dead children, “Often, in the seven years to come, I would regret that I had not simply blessed them that day and walked away.” Though the information is solid, and Garner provides a strong picture of the trial and murder case, the impact is lessened by her own internal musings.

August 1, 2023
A stark account of the harrowing aftermath of a horrific crime. In 2005, Robert Farquharson went to trial for causing the deaths of his three young children when he drove off a road in rural Australia, plunging his car, with the children strapped inside, into a dam. Novelist, screenwriter, and journalist Garner attended that trial--and retrial in 2010--and she creates a chilling, sometimes-numbing account of the courtroom proceedings; the evidence presented to the juries and the evidence withheld; the demeanors of the lawyers and judges; and the testimony of scores of witnesses, including medical and psychological experts, various police officers and emergency personnel, and the accused's wife, friends, and co-workers. In the first trial, 40 witnesses testified for the Crown and five for the defense. The lawyers were a study in contrasts: Farquharson was defended by the verbose Peter Morrissey, "big, fair, and bluff," who could cause jurors' eyes to glaze over with his incessant examination of minutiae; the Crown's representative was Jeremy Rapke, who swooped like a falcon "into the muck" of testimony to draw blood. Although not serving on the jury, Garner empathizes with their challenge: to weigh contradictory evidence, tease truth from lies, and test what they hear against what they believe. They learned that Farquharson's marriage had ended, his wife was living with another man, and, Garner reports, "the general feeling was that a man like Farquharson could not tolerate the loss of control he experienced" because of both occurrences. Was he depressed and suicidal? Did he seek revenge against his wife? Or, as he adamantly maintained, had he blacked out because of a coughing fit and lost control of the car? Garner captures the breathless suspense during the wait for the jury to return; the blow of the decision and sentencing; and her own unsettled response to the shattering experience of contemplating an unthinkable crime. A sensitive rendering of a legal drama.

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Starred review from September 1, 2023
The facts are incontrovertible. On September 4, 2005--Father's Day in Australia--Robert Farquharson was returning his three sons to their mother's home when his car veered off the highway and plummeted into a farm pond. Farquharson managed to free himself and swim to the surface. His children, ages ten, seven, and two, drowned. The motive behind Farquharson's actions, however, remains unclear. Did he intend to kill his children as an act of revenge against his estranged wife, who had fallen in love with another man, or was he incapacitated by a coughing fit so severe it caused him to temporarily black out? Acclaimed Australian novelist and journalist Garner was in the courtroom for the weeks-long trial that resulted in Farquharson's conviction on three counts of murder; she returned when he was granted a new trial upon appeal and came back once again when the sentence of three life terms was announced. Extended court trials can be extraordinarily tedious with moments of sudden drama, and Farquharson's was no exception. Garner chronicles conflicting physical evidence, controversial medical opinions, and contentious personal betrayals. Throughout, she infuses her account with a mesmeric blend of pathos and skepticism that, despite the known conclusion, will keep readers in suspense.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 11, 2014