Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner

One of the reasons I was keen to read the book was to see what approach she’d take. Garner sat through both trials, the first one lasting around 7 weeks, and the second one 11 weeks, and managed to condense it all into 300 pages of lucid prose. However, he was tried and found guilty, tried again after winning an appeal and found guilty again, and was then refused leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia. They were still inside the vehicle and unrestrained by seatbelts.įarquharson claimed that he did not intend to kill his children, that he had blacked out during a coughing fit (a condition known as cough syncope). Farquharson managed to escape and alerted another driver who took him to nearby Winchelsea. Police divers recovered the boys’ bodies about 2 am the next day. His three children, Jai (10), Tyler (7) and Bailey (2), were unable to free themselves and drowned. … as Farquharson was returning his children to their mother after a Father’s Day access visit, his white 1989 VN Commodore vehicle veered across the Princes Highway between Winchelsea and Geelong, crashed through a fence and came to rest in a farm dam where it filled with water and submerged. I’ve read and appreciated both these books, along with novels and short stories by Garner, and so was keen to read this, her latest.įor those of you who don’t know the story, here’s Wikipedia’s summary of what happened: But Helen Garner is made of strong stuff, having previously written The first stone about the sexual harassment of two girls at Melbourne University’s Ormond College and Joe Cinque’s consolation about the trial of a woman accused of murdering her boyfriend via a drug overdose. Well you might ask why you would want to read a book about the trial of a man accused of murdering his three sons by driving his car into a dam and escaping the car himself? Indeed, Helen Garner was asked why she would want to attend such a trial – and write about it.

Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner