2025-08-15
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Hello, my name is Claire Longrig, and I'm the Deputy Editor of The Guardian Long Read.
This summer, we want to bring you our top picks of the year so far on The Audio Long Read.
Today, I'd like to introduce a profile of Australian writer Helen Garner by Sophie Elmhurst,
who has previously profiled Richard Dawkins and casting director Nina Gold, among others.
The piece is titled The Savage Suburbia of Helen Garner,
with a quote, I wanted to dong Martin Amis with a bat.
It opens with a brilliantly telling scene.
Ghana, feeling lonely when her family is away at the beach,
prunes the hell out of a bush in her garden.
By the time she's finished, there's barely a leaf remaining,
and she's described as aghast and delighted with her own violence.
She says, being willing to destroy is very important, to be out there with a sharp-edged blade.
There's a conspiratorial note here.
She's not talking about gardening.
The pruning story is a perfect opening to a piece about a woman writer who has,