The author, who parlayed her experience into the award-winning novel The Spare Room, recently re-lived it while watching the stage adaptation
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hen Helen Garner arrived at Sydney’s Belvoir St theatre last Wednesday, she was worried the next two hours were “going to be gruesome”. It was opening night of the adaptation of her 2008 novel, The Spare Room, based on her experience caring for a dying friend who came to stay with her.
“They were the three worst weeks of my life, they were just unforgettably dreadful,” Garner said in conversation with Jennifer Byrne at Belvoir on Monday evening. “I came along [to opening night] feeling that I would find it unbearable to live those three weeks again.”
After the show, she crawled into bed “exhausted”. “I don’t sleep very well now, since I got old, but I got into bed and I slept without moving for nine hours,” Garner said. “Seeing those three weeks played out on stage resolved something in me.”
