'Honest' is the word critics often use to describe Helen Garner's writing. Her latest book, 'The Season', is efficient, clever, unusual and provocative. But honestly, it certainly isn't, writes Rosemary Sorensen .
THE BLOKES ARE gushing over Helen Garner ’s little book, The Season , which, she says , is simply about “footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk” . How gifted is this writer, says editor of The Monthly , Michael Williams , 'celebrated for her powers of observation and the precision of her perceptions' .
In this 'charming "nanna’s book about footy," Helen Garner writes with candour, vigilance and insight' , says emeritus professor of creative writing at Melbourne University Kevin Brophy in The Conversation . Poignantly capturing the passage into old age of one of Australia’s best-known writers, The Season is about an Australian Football League ( AFL ) under-16 team, the Flemington Colts , whose training and games the 82-year-old follows with notebook in hand, her grandson Amby her focus in a team of teenagers that – coached by a 20-year-old – become men before her adoring eyes. Nina Culley on Arts Hub writes : 'Garner’s real subject is the broader terrain of grace, loyalty, grit and what it means to be masculine today.
' Unlike men who have written and spoken fulsomely about The Season , Culley’s mention of masculinity as the focus and reason for this book is spot on. And, carefully, she identifies what’s actually going on with a writer wh.
