GARNER, HELEN: THE CHILDREN'S BACH

Athena and Dexter Fox are happy. They love each other. They are friends.They live with their young sons in a sparsely furnished house near the Merri Creek: its walls cracking, its floors sloping and its doors hanging loosely in their frames. There is a piano in their kitchen.But then, one day - years after their lives have taken different directions - Dexter runs into Elizabeth, an old friend from his university days. She brings into his world her loose-living musician boyfriend, Philip, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Vicki.And all at once, the bonds that hold the Fox family together begin to fray.Helen Garner',s perfectly formed novels embody Melbourne',s tumultuous 1970s and 1980s. Drawn on a small canvas and with a subtle musical backdrop, The Children',s Bach is a beloved work that weighs the burdens of commitment against the costs of liberation.