The Fog Garden

A moving and eloquent novel that has confirmed Marion Halligan's status as one of Australia's finest writers.


Somewhere in the kaleidoscope between life and art sits Clare, whose story is Marion Halligan's The Fog Garden. Clare, like Marion, is a woman of a certain age whose much-loved husband of thirty-odd years has just died. And Clare, like Marion, is a novelist.


With the loss of such a marriage of true minds and kindred spirits Clare finds herself building a 'cathedral of grief' - and reeling into the arms of an old friend. Life and writing loop and spiral around Clare and the central enormous fact of her husband's death.


The Fog Garden is a rollercoaster of a story about the nature of fiction and how life creates art, how adultery can be liberating and how sex doesn't stop with age, and how grief is as much a gift as love.


Halligan has crafted a poignant and powerful novel, playing all the time on that dangerous ground between her own life and that of her heroine.


'Deeply moving, highly original and beautifully written. a brave and brilliant display, stolen from death and grief, which transforms the shreds of everyday life into art.' - Sally Blakeney, The Bulletin


'A rich, dynamic book that constantly delights and surprises.' - Liam Davison, The Weekend Australian


'It doesn't pull its punches - about death, love, sex or disaster - but it leaves the reader standing. And replenished.' - Dorothy Porter