Garner, Helen. Joe Cinque’s Consolation

Description

Joe Cinque’s Consolation
by Helen Garner.

Picador (Pan Macmillan), Sydney, 2004.
First Edition paperback.

‘I checked into my hotel and walked to Garema place. Even on a pleasant Autumn afternoon the enormous plaza, designed at some more innocent era of the city’s history, was made squalid by the drifts of junkies, distracted by their searching, who congregated around the phone booths at the top of the rise near the terminal.’ (p.67)

The first of Garner’s courtroom investigations is an ethical inquiry into the Canberra murder of Joe Cinque by his girlfriend Anu Singh. Garner’s shift to true crime broke new ground for Picador’s brand of literary non-fiction under publishing director Nikki Christer.

Garner reads the public mood with this contribution to contemporary debates on truth in sentencing and offering her own form of retributive justice. While the book was a bestseller, Garner’s resistance to the defence of mental illness and criticism of Singh’s light sentence was controversially received.

Condition: Cover has slight curl to bottom right-hand corner and edges. Reading sticker on back with original price of 30 dollars paid in 2004. Pages, tanned, with a crease towards the end of the book, otherwise unmarked and in very good condition.