The spare room

An extraordinary work of fiction from one of Australia's best-selling and most admired writers First, in my spare room, I swivelled the bed on to a north-south axis - Isn't that supposed to align the sleeper with the planet's positive energy flow, or something? She would think so - I made it up nicely with a fresh fitted sheet, the pale pink one, since she had a famous feel for colour, and pink is flattering even to skin that has turned yellowish.-Helen prepares her spare room for her friend Nicola, who is flying down from Sydney for a three-week visit - But this is no ordinary visit - Nicola has advanced cancer - She is coming to Melbourne to receive treatment she believes will cure her - From the moment Nicola steps off the plane, Helen becomes her nurse, her protector, her guardian angel and her stony judge - The Spare Room tells a story of compassion and rage as the two women - one sceptical, one stubbornly serene - negotiate their way through Nicola's gruelling treatments - Garner's dialogue is pitch perfect, her sense of pacing flawless as this novel draws to its terrible and transcendent finale.