How to End a Story cover art

How to End a Story

Diaries 1995-1998

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

How to End a Story

By: Helen Garner
Narrated by: Helen Garner
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $34.99

Buy Now for $34.99

About this listen

Helen Garner’s third volume of diaries is an account of a woman fighting to hold on to a marriage that is disintegrating around her.

Living with a powerfully ambitious writer who is consumed by his work and trying to find a place for her own spirit to thrive, she rails against the confines. At the same time, she is desperate to find the truth in their relationship - and the truth of her own self.

This is a harrowing story, a portrait of the messy, painful, dark side of love lost, of betrayal and sadness and the sheer force of a woman’s anger. But it is also a story of resilience and strength, strewn with sharp insight, moments of joy and hope, the immutable ties of motherhood and the regenerative power of a room of one’s own.

2023, National Biography Award, Short-listed

2023, ASA Medal, Winner

2025, Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, Winner

©2021 Helen Garner. First published by The Text Publishing Company (P)2022 Bolinda Publishing Art & Literature Authors Diaries & Journals Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence

Critic Reviews

"The ordinary in these diaries - the daily, the diurnal, the stumbled-upon, the breathing in and out - is turned into something else through the writer’s extraordinary craft." (Australian Book Review)

"Helen Garner is one of the lords of language in our midst and something more." (The Australian)

"The spirituality of these diaries is worth a library of high-minded theology." (Sydney Morning Herald)
All stars
Most relevant
I liked the Australian context, the concept use of language and the real and relatable story.

Honesty

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
i will read the diaries again and again. i feel so fortunate that Helen wrote, shaped and read this magnificent work.

Wonderful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thoroughly enjoyed Garner’s masterful rendering of a marriage unravelling as a result of infidelity. In the end, the love of our life must be ones own self.

Secrets, Sex and Lies

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A great story of the breakup of a marriage. V, as she calls her husband, comes across as a very selfish insensitive self absorbed person.
The book is subtle and beautifully written.

Fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved it. Reading it again, just for the cleverness of her sentence construction and pure, honest vocabulary.

Garner Again

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.