This House of Grief by Helen Garner

I bought this book and Golden Boys (previous review) after seeing them shortlisted for the Australian Independent Book Sellers awards (The Indies).

This was a new genre for me. It's the story of the court proceedings in a true crime. On Father's Day 2005 Robert Farquharson drove his car, with his 3 young sons in, off the road and into a dam. Farquharson survived  while his sons died. He had recently separated from his wife and she had started seeing someone else. He claimed that he had a coughing fit, blacked out, and found himself in the car under water.

Helen Garner is an author and journalist. She attended Farquharson's Melbourne trial and got to know some of his ex-wife's family. She provides an excellent portrayal of the trial including the hounding of the police witnesses by the defence lawyer and attempts to confuse and misdirect the jury. The book left me in awe of lawyers, both prosecution and defence. They have to make sense of technical details about tyre marks and the camber of the road that leave both the jury and Garner herself struggling to stay awake, let alone make sense of them.

The book helps the reader understand the husband and wife. Could a man hate his wife so much that he would drown the children he loved just to spite her? Does the wife really know her husband or has she convinced herself that it was all an accident because the idea that it wasn't is just too much to bare?

At the end of the book Garner is convinced that the jury has the right verdict. I still wasn't sure that it couldn't have been a coughing fit, and that the older child tried to steer and ended up in the dam. If Farquharson did do it on purpose, I have no idea how he would know that he could get out of the car, so suicide followed by a change of mind was still an option for me.

Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett

This is a beautifully written book published in 2014; some of the descriptive language reads almost like poetry.

It's a story about street friends and embarrassing fathers. The Jensen family move to a working class suburb. Their father is a good looking dentist who buys his two sons every toy available. The Kylie family have 6 children and live in a small 3 bedroom home. Then there's the big bully boy Garrick, and the streetwise, neglected, Avery.

It's not clear when the story is set, but it's a time when children disappeared all day on their bikes and a BMX or a skateboard was every boy's dream. There's no mention of a mobile phone a Nintendo or a computer. It could be as early as the 70s or as late as the 90s.

The book captures a time when children weren't over scheduled, when they fought their own battles and made their own rules. It's an unromantic, warts and all, image.

Half the Sky: How to Change the World by Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl Wudunn

This book was not an easy read. It's engaging and well written, but the stories it tells are just very difficult to hear. The book tells of the struggles young women face around the world, including forced marriage, prostitution, trafficking, rape, dying in childbirth, being denied an education, female genital mutilation, the list goes on.

The book gives examples of women who have taken a stand. It describes projects that are making a difference and encourages readers to take action. It explores attitudes to women and asks the question, Is Islam mysogynistic? More information can be found at http://www.halftheskymovement.org

The book is full of great quotes. I found myself underlining something on almost every page. Here are a few:

"Iran is a bundle of contradictions. Women can't testify in court, and yet women can be the judge presiding over the court."

"When a girls' junior high school caught fire in Saudi Arabia in 2002, the religious police allegedly forced teenage girls back into the burning building rather than allow them to escape without head coverings."

"Women are not dying because of untreatable diseases. They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving."

"In Niger, a woman stands a 1 in 7 chance of dying in childbirth."

"The fistula patient is the modern day leper."

"It has become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict."

"We in the West can best help by playing supporting roles to local people."

The People Smuggler by Robin de Crespigny

This is the true story of Ali Al Jenabi, the eldest son of a middle class Iraqi family, raised while Saddam Hussein was in power. Ali's father was in the army but openly critical of Saddam. When he was sent  to Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Ali and his brother Ahmad had to support their large family by selling cigarettes at the market after school. Ali was always in danger of being sent to prison himself, either for failing to join the army or for his suspected opposition to Saddam.

After a long stint in Abu Ghraib, Ali worked in the resistance movement. This put his family in danger and they were all forced to flee to Iran. They then tried to find somewhere more permanent.

Ali eventually made it to Indonesia. He tried to get to Australia by boat, but he was cheated out of his money by a people smuggler. He decided that the only way to get his whole family to Australia was to organise his own boats and use the profit to pay for their passage. He was eventually captured by the Australian Federal Police and tried in Australia as a people smuggler.

This is not a happy story. It depicts the appalling reality many Iraqis and other refugees have faced. It shows the effect fear and poverty can have on people. Sometimes people risk their life for strangers and other times children turn their own parents over to the police.

The accounts of life in Abu Ghraib prison made me wonder how anyone survived. When they weren't  being tortured and beaten, the prisoners were forced to sleep on their sides, thirty to a cell, packed so close together no one could turn or get up. If they vomited or needed to defecate they had to do it where they were. Prisoners lived like this for years on end.

Some people call Ali Al Jenabi a saviour, the Oskar Schindler of Asia, others call him a criminal. Having read the book, I'll go with hero. Ali is currently living in Sydney but could be sent back to Iraq at any time. I hope the Australian government grants him permanent residency and soon.

A Wicked Snow by Gregg Olsen

When firefighters arrive at a blaze at a Christmas tree farm in Oregon they find the burnt bodies of two twin boys and a headless women. They also find the bodies of 17 older men, long since buried,  around the grounds.

It is unclear whether the headless body is that of farm owner Claire Logan, who is suspected of killing the men. He boyfriend Marcus Wheaton is sent to prison for 20 years for starting the fire. The story is told through the eyes of Helen, Claire's daughter, who was 13 at the time of the fire. Twenty years on, she is a CSI (Crime Scene Investigator), married with a daughter. Marcus Wheaton is dying and about to finish his 20 year prison sentence. Helen and the original FBI agent who investigated the case, Jack Bauer, visit Wheaton in prison to try and find out if Claire is alive and where she might be.

Author Gregg Olsen usually writes true crime stories. This is his first novel. The crime details are excellent. Olsen also shows how people touched by notorious crimes have to keep living with them. Helen has started a new life, her daughter and her work colleagues don't know she's the daughter of Claire Logan, yet journalists are always trying to track her down.

It's a great story, well told. It doesn't have lots of plot twists, you just slowly find out what happened and why; I was a little disappointed with the ending. That said, Olsen has written two more 'chiller thriller' books and I'm looking forward to reading them.

The One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

Jess is a single mum in her mid 20s, struggling to make ends meet. Her goth stepson Nicky keeps getting beaten up and her daughter Tanzie is a maths prodigy. Ed is a workaholic computer geek who naively got involved in insider trading and now faces a possible prison sentence. Jess is Ed's cleaner. In an impulsive moment, Ed offers to drive Jess, Nicky, Tanzie and their huge dog, from Southampton to Aberdeen so that Tanzie can enter a maths competition.

The story reveals the frustrations of being poor. There seems to be no escaping the local state school and the bullies who attack anyone who is different. Yet Jess is trying to be positive and teach her children that they can overcome whatever trials they may face. The book is not so gritty that it's depressing. Overall it's entertaining and heartwarming; it would make a great holiday read.

When I Found you by Catherine Ryan Hyde

The book tells the story of Nathan, a married, childless, middle age bookkeeper who finds a baby in the woods when he is out hunting. He would like to raise the child but the baby's grandmother steps in. Fifteen years later, when she finds the boy (Nat) too difficult to handle, she asks Nathan if he's changed his mind. Nathan takes Nat in and commits to raising him come what may.

I enjoyed the book but Nat wants to be a boxer and the boxing storyline reminded me of many a dull boxing movie. I was also bothered by the book's suggestion that middle age couples who dedicate themselves to helping troubled teens may just be trying to find some excitement, or create meaning, in their otherwise boring lives. When asked why he goes to extraordinary lengths for Nat, Nathan says something along the lines of "what else have I done that's extraordinary?"

I doubt the story would inspire anyone to take in a stranger's child; that doesn't seem to be the aim.  It has a more general message about helping people not because you have to, but because you can.