Monkey Grip

A Novel

Author Helen Garner

Foreword by Lauren Groff

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A BBC "100 Books That Shaped the World"

"[Helen Garner's] novels give the impression of being in sharper focus than most."—New Yorker

The novel that launched the career of one of Australia’s greatest writers, following the doomed infatuations of a young, single mother, enthralled by the excesses of late-70s Melbourne

Set in Australia in the late 1970s, Monkey Grip follows single mother and writer Nora as she navigates the tumultuous cityscape of Melbourne’s bohemian underground, often with her young daughter Gracie in tow. When Nora falls in love with the flighty Javo, she becomes snared in the web of his addiction. And as their tenuous relationship disintegrates, Nora struggles to wean herself off a love that feels impossible to live without.

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June 17, 2025

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HELEN GARNER writes novels, stories, screenplays, and works of non-fiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, and in 2016 she won the prestigious Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Non-fiction. In 2019 she was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. Her books include Monkey Grip, The Children’s Bach, Cosmo Cosmolino, The Spare Room, The First Stone, This House of Grief, Everywhere I Look, and her diaries Yellow Notebook, One Day I’ll Remember This, and How to End a Story.