Helen Garner reflects on the ‘three worst weeks of my life’ caring for a dying friend

Helen Garner at home in Melbourne. In her novel The Spare Room, now also a stage show, a woman grapples with her anger while caring for a dying friend. Photograph: Charlie Kinross/The Guardian

When Helen Garner arrived at Sydney’s Belvoir St theatre last Wednesday, she was worried the next two hours were “going to be gruesome”. It was opening night of the adaptation of her 2008 novel, The Spare Room, based on her experience caring for a dying friend who came to stay with her.

“They were the three worst weeks of my life, they were just unforgettably dreadful,” Garner said in conversation with Jennifer Byrne at Belvoir on Monday evening. “I came along [to opening night] feeling that I would find it unbearable to live those three weeks again.”