Like Carol Shields, Joan Didion and Kate Grenville in previous years, Helen Garner is a bestselling writer waiting to be discovered by a British audience. The Spare Room is an electrifying novel about the distance a friendship must travel, and the depths it must plumb, when confronted by the threat of death. It is full of wisdom, dark laughter and truth.

Prizes for The Spare Room:

• Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction
  
• Queensland Premier’s Award for Fiction
  
• Barbara Jefferis Award
  
• Shortlisted, WA Premier’s Awards, 2008
  
• Shortlisted, NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction
  
• Shortlisted, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
  
• Shortlisted, Australian Literary Society Gold Medal
  
• Shortlisted, Colin Roderick Award