What To Read

Every once in a while, a book comes along that leaves you breathless. Monkey Grip by Helen Garner is one of those books. Originally published in 1977 in Australia, the book follows the trials of a young single mother in Melbourne as she becomes involved with the mercurial characters of the city's bohemian underground. On February 20, the book is finally being re-released in the United States. Kirkus hailed it as "a dreamy sojourn in the druggy, sexy counterculture of mid-1970s Melbourne, Australia... High times with the mother of autofiction."

As part of our First Dibs Editors Salon on February 13, we will provide Tertulia members with an advance preview of Monkey Grip, along with a few other notable forthcoming books, in an exclusive event featuring the editors who brought them to life. Learn more.

The book's acquiring editor, Lisa Lucas (Senior Vice President and Publisher at Pantheon Books) selected this book for the salon and shared this personal note just for Tertulia readers.

Monkey Grip by Helen Garner (February 20)

A note from Lisa Lucas (Senior Vice President and Publisher at Pantheon Books)

When I first had the pleasure of meeting Helen in 2016 when she was awarded a Windham Campbell Prize, I had already known for a long time that her works deserved to be as beloved and widely read here in the states as they are in her home country of Australia. What I didn't realize, though, is that just a few years later I would get to help lead the charge to make that happen. From her spare, carefully-rendered novels that draw inspiration from her own life; to her closely-reported works of nonfiction; to her rapturously engaging diaries; she's truly a writer that defies categorization, but The New York Times put it best when they called her "a master anatomist of ordinary people in difficult times."

Monkey Grip is her debut novel, and her third work that Pantheon will be publishing, following her seminal novel The Children's Bach and her true-crime reported work This House of Grief, and preceding her collected diaries and a book of short stories. While Monkey Grip was massively popular when it came out in Australia in 1977, reviews criticized it as overly-reliant on her own life and experiences. But I think it's as relevant today in our age of decadence and dissociation as it was during the counterculture movements of the 1970s, and every aspect of publishing both this novel and her other works, from finding foreword writers to bring new context and meaning to Garner's writing to putting together designs that sing both individually and side-by-side, has been both a labor of love and a true team effort. It's not an exaggeration to say that over my three years at Pantheon, and my decades working to celebrate and honor great writing, publishing these books has been one of the most exciting moments in my career.

— Lisa Lucas is Senior Vice President and Publisher at Pantheon Books.