My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin/Random House for an advanced copy of this book. My opinions are my own. This book caught my attention because it was so closely like a case in Upstate South Carolina in the 1990’s that I knew about from living in there.
Helen Garner is a recognized Australian journalist who wrote of her observations of a trial for a father whose 3 young sons died in a horrible accident. Robert Farquharson was taking his sons back to his estranged wife after a Father’s Day outing with them. He lost control of the car and crashed into a dam. Although Robert escaped, his sons did not. This House of Grief details the two trials that followed.
Garner observes the trial, the families, the lawyers and judges, the witnesses, everyone in the courtrooms as she details this sad story. She develops a relationship with some of the relatives. She talks to people in the local coffee shops and bars. Her highly developed observational skills make this book interesting; her writing skills make it very readable.
I enjoyed this book. 4 stars

Wow. This book held back no punches. This House of Grief is a true crime story of the case of Robert Farquharson, who claims to have blacked out during a coughing fit and his car with himself and three children went into the water and he was the only one to walk away.. The court case that followed the questionable accident and the evidence given was great.

This book could have been slightly shorter I did find somethings repetitive but with that said it was a Birds Eye view of the court case so there probably was a lot of repetitiveness. The story itself was difficult at times but it was interesting going along with the court procedures.

The House of Grief is a nonfiction true crime book about the case of Robert Farquharson, who drove his car into a pond in Winchelsea (Australia) with his three children in it. He escaped while his children perished. Garner was interested in the case and diligently follows the seven week trial that occurred in 2005, including the appeal and the ultimate decision.

Farquharson claims he blacked out from a coughing fit at the wheel causing his car to go into the water. Garner deftly weaves courtroom drama, including witness accounts and testimony with the events of the night of the accident, all in great detail. She paints a portrait of a man in deep despair, having recently separated from his wife and now the reason for the loss of their children. This is in contrast to the prosecution’s portrayal of Farquharson as an angry, vengeful man, out to inflict the worst pain imaginable on his wife.

This was obviously a difficult read due to the nature of the crime, but I was captivated. I appreciated Garner’s sensitive analyses and attempt to have an honest and unbiased look into the case.

Garner gives us a bird’s eye view into a horrific crime committed in Australia in 2005. Writing a true account of the trial and its outcome for Robert Farquharson, a father accused of drowning his three sons by veering off the road and plunging into a dam. While he claims he’s innocent and completely heart broken, his actions say something completely different. Could he possibly have done it on purpose? Not necessarily the most enjoyable read due to subject matter, but definitely one true crime buffs will like to contemplate. Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

I'm a true crime avid reader but struggling to finish this book. Some parts of it are repetitive, badly written and difficult to read. Not recommended.

There is quite an industry for courtroom thrillers and dramas.

This one however is one with a difference - it is based on a real-life Courtroom drama. Australian divorcé Robert Farquharson claimed to have a blackout after a coughing fit whilst driving - and his car fell down a steep incline into the water, killing his free sons. From his former marriage. Yet he survived.

The journalist writer does stress at the very beginning that there is always an element of subjectiveness wherever an assessment has to be made: innocent or guilty, alongside the responsibility imposed on the juries to get it right. Most murderers plead innocent, or may be in denial about what they did! Meanwhile the job of the defense is to pick holes in the evidence in such a way that itay seem almost impossible to decide which version of events is a true one. Luckily in Australia there is currently no death penalty.

This is more a character study of all the players on the case, and cut-and-dried conclusions play no part in what this book has to offer. This is not a thriller either, and the nit-picking of the possible logistics can make this read pretty tedious and heavy-going at times.

Just like real life. Recently, a high-profile court case in the British system was just like this, making it frustratingly very difficult to decide if in fact the défendent had donr it at all. Again, no easy answers.

No doubt, one for real lawyers, and armchair lawyers, this one

This house of grief was truly fascinating! It was a long read for me because although fascinating it wasn’t revelatory n any way if you were familiar with the case (which I wasn’t when I started the book initially) but must everything in the book can easily be found online. However, that in no way diminishes the time effort and care that went into creating this book. I feel it was more fluid then chronological but overall it was excellent as far as covering everything that happened and the resulting verdict. It’s honestly a great read for anyone interested in true crime and I highly recommend it.

A good read but I found that it repeated itself in places which made it a bit hard going for me. Other than that it was a good book to read.

I normally really love true crime stories and they can be told in so many way but I struggled with this one. While I found the story intriguing and debated the guilt of this father accused of killing his three children, the writing style was so hard for me. I wanted a clearer distinction for the timeline. I felt like the story ran on and didn't have great breaks in it. I found myself confused and having to re-read and them skipping parts. Like many others in the reviews I was looking for more insight into the authors thoughts and experiences. Unfortunately this one just wasn't a hit for me at all.

"This House of Grief" is getting its U.S. debut after originally being published in Australia in 2014. Helen Garner is well known and beloved in Australia, a celebrated novelist, an icon "on par with Joan Didion or Annie Ernaux in her home country". I'd agree with those accolades after having first read "The Children's Bach" and now "This House of Grief". The two are worlds apart in subject matter (sprawling family drama vs. courtroom proceedings) yet they both proceed with the efficiency and keen insight Garner brings to her subjects.

In 2005 a father was charged with the murder of his three sons after the car he was driving flew off the road and into a dam. On Father's Day. Garner had journalist credentials and sat in on the court proceedings, detailing the arguments and testimonies, the accused's behavior and demeanor, the witnesses, the jurors, the whole system. Garner interrogates not only the evidence but also her response to it, her visceral reaction to the chaotic and mundane facts presented in the case. She involves herself in the narrative as the observer, the decider of guilt and innocence, if only in her own thoughts, and pulls the reader into that mindset with her.

"My head was full of a very loud clanging. Nothing expert, nothing trained or intellectual. Just a shit-detector going off, that was all. The alarm bells of a woman who had been in the world for more than sixty years, knowing men, sometimes hearing them say true things, sometimes being told lies." We're sitting right next to her, listening to every word, making up our minds.

My thanks to NetGalley and Pantheon Books for the ARC. "This House of Grief" was published in the U.S. in October.

This is the type of 'thoughtful true crime' that I appreciate. It deals with an awful crime and the subsequent murder trial, but it doesn't have the sleeziness or gossippy nature of a lot of the work out there. The central question is still: did he do it? Which is good and keeps the tension throughout the book.
But there are also broader questions, especially on the design of the justice system and the idea of putting a jury in charge to determine guilt in a situation where very little is clear about the truth of what happened.

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my own.

2.5 stars

I thought the case itself was really interesting, but it also felt very surface level. It didn’t feel like anything I couldn’t find if I just googled the case.

Also, my ebook had really poor formatting and I hope it’s not how the final book is, but there were no chapters at all. Everything felt like it just kept going and going. It would have been a lot better if it was set up to have those chapters for a better mental break point and pause point.

I felt fairly blah about this book so I probably wouldn’t recommend it, I’d probably just tell my friends to Google the story.

I rarely do not finish a book, but I just could not get through this one. The writing style was slow and boring, the main character added nothing to the story and the terrible-ness of the plot line just made it too much to keep going. Maybe I'm missing something because some reviewers seemed to love it, but this story was not for me.

I'm sorry about those children but this book was so boring. I couldn't concentrate, it was so slow and plain. I generally like true crime books because of the way they're written, but this is the exception.

Typically the trial is the most tedious part of a true crime story. It's repetitive, slow, and flat. But this trial came to life, and I honestly can't say whether I would've been confident in the outcome either way. We have our gut feelings, but surely that can't be enough. There's evidence, but so much of it is contradictory or reliant on the honesty and integrity of others. But like her barrister friend said, there are decisions to be made.

Robert Farquharson, a divorced Australian father of three boys, drove them into murky waters late one Sunday and left them there to die. The author covered both of his murder trials and it is those trials which are the subject of this book. Garner gives a detailed account. of her feelings and experiences as well as what she observed in others, including family members, barristers, witnesses and the public.

Little is said about what occurred outside of what was presented during the trial. It is the experience of attending the trial itself including the tedium of mind numbing technical testimony. Unlike notable trials in the US, the intimacy of the courtroom led to a certain familiarity with the boy's family, with the author sometimes sitting with them during the breaks.

I found the self imposed constraints on the narrative led to a sometimes boring and repetitive account I would have liked to have known more about the victims, their family and the lawyers involved.

Helen Garner writes about true crime from the most ambiguous viewpoint, which makes her books so intriguing and thought-provoking. At no point does Helen try to sway your opinion. She doesn’t drop little snide hints (although this crime had thousands of opportunities to do so), and she doesn’t show one party in a more positive light than the other. At the end of this novel, I was thinking, “Oh, sure, even a blind mouse can tell who’s the guilty one here”, but later in the quiet, my mind returned to the individuals involved and I questioned my own quick conclusions. In short, Helen makes you an independent juror, and the weight of your decision makes you feel as if it’s real.
Father’s Day 2005, Robert, who is estranged from his wife Cindy, is returning the kids after a visit. A horrible accident happens on the way home, and the three boys are lost forever. Cindy’s initial response, of course, is shock and horror. After some time, though, she develops a forgiving soft spot for Robert, and stands by his side when the authorities question him as a suspect.
The investigation turns up some interesting behaviors and questionable actions. Friends and family are both divided and strongly opinionated about what actually happened. Helen dives deeper into the backgrounds of the parties involved, and her revelations clarify some suspicions, but they shoot an arrow right into the heart of others. Meanwhile, you, the reader, are not being spoon-fed and directed at what to think. Your thoughts of the incident follow you long after you’ve set the book aside. Your decision weighs as heavily on you as some people who actually bore the burden.
This is a fabulously written account of true crime, the legal proceedings, and the questions that linger long after the gavel hit the bench.
Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The publishing date was October 10, 2023.

This book was not for me. I took such a long time to finish and was bored at times. This tragic true crime story was engrossing all on its own but I felt it was poorly executed. There was no structure and the author added too many unnecessary details. The second half of the book was a bit better but overall I was left disappointed.

I received a free copy of, This House of Grief, by Helen Garner, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Robert Farquharson was driving his three sons home, when they were in a car accident, the boys died but Robert survived. Their were trials, so much stress for the family. Such a sad story, 3 lives cut short, at the hands of their father. on Fathers Day!

Absolutely riveting. How something like this can destroy a decade of your life, how like a tsunami it sucks everything it touches into its wake. The author’s writing is brilliant and stunning, her insights both personal and universal—I can practically feel the hard wooden bench under my butt, the charged atmosphere of the court as she sits day after day covering the trial of the father who may or may not have killed his children. A terrible, stupid accident or a revenge fantasy come true?
It's hard too, to read True Crime, and say the things I usually reserve for fiction. But the author’s style is both transcendent and gritty, and this I enjoyed very much. It’s not entertainment—too harrowing, as it covers the deaths of three little boys by drowning. Reporting, literary journalism, the promise of finding out who did it—or did he do it?
The character witnesses are a parade of the many layers in Australian society, the shocked friends, the multiple professionals who time and time again have to return to the courtroom stage with their evidence and their fears. The ravaged mother who’s suffered an unbelievable loss. By the time this thing is over, no one close to the family is the same as when they started.
If you are reader of True Crime, I highly recommend this dark and starkly beautiful book.
Thank you, NetGalley, for a copy of this book to read and review.