The Season
From the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize
Will be published approx. on 5. November 2026
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-1-3996-2805-1 (ISBN)
Description
I'm trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we spend together before he turns into a man and I die.
It's footy season in Melbourne, and Helen Garner is following her grandson's under-16s team. She not only goes to every game (give or take), but to every training session too, shivering on the sidelines at dusk, fascinated by the spectacle.
She's a passionate Western Bulldogs fan with an imperfect grasp of the rules, who loves the epic theatre of AFL football. But her devotion to the under-16s offers her something else. This is her chance to connect with her youngest grandchild, to be close to him before he rushes headlong into manhood. To witness his triumphs and defeats, to fear for his safety in battle, to gasp and to cheer for his team as it fights for a place in the finals.
With her sharp eye, generous wit and warm humour, Garner documents this pivotal moment, both as part of the story and as silent witness. The Season is an unexpected and exuberant book: a celebration of the nobility, grace and grit of team spirit, a reflection on the nature of masculinity, and a tribute to the game's power to thrill us.
It's footy season in Melbourne, and Helen Garner is following her grandson's under-16s team. She not only goes to every game (give or take), but to every training session too, shivering on the sidelines at dusk, fascinated by the spectacle.
She's a passionate Western Bulldogs fan with an imperfect grasp of the rules, who loves the epic theatre of AFL football. But her devotion to the under-16s offers her something else. This is her chance to connect with her youngest grandchild, to be close to him before he rushes headlong into manhood. To witness his triumphs and defeats, to fear for his safety in battle, to gasp and to cheer for his team as it fights for a place in the finals.
With her sharp eye, generous wit and warm humour, Garner documents this pivotal moment, both as part of the story and as silent witness. The Season is an unexpected and exuberant book: a celebration of the nobility, grace and grit of team spirit, a reflection on the nature of masculinity, and a tribute to the game's power to thrill us.
Reviews / Votes
I love everything about this book - the clear-eyed acceptance of the effacement of old age before the dynamic imperative of youth; the way the baton is surrendered graciously, willingly; Garner's dogged fidelity as a witness, whether it's at a murder trial or sitting on the sidelines of a freezing footy field; that she is so intellectually interested in and unthreatened by masculinity -- Clare Chambers I understand zip about football or any sport, but I cried. Glorious -- Charlotte Wood Garner is working in epic mode in The Season as she examines familiar themes and preoccupations: masculinity and its codes, the pleasures and contradictions of social groups, what it means to bear witness . . . Garner has always been an extraordinary stylist and in The Season her prose, athletic, soars and dances, just like those young footballers * Guardian * Inclusive and universal, curious and tender, perceptive and wise . . . The Season is joyful, but there is a carefully woven thread of melancholy running through it, and it is this that gives the book its lovely, old-gold sunset hue -- Nick Hornby * New York Times * Startling in its candour and compelling in its nakedness . . . a marvellous paean to the glories of youth just shy of the treacheries of manhood * Australian * The Season is marked by Garner's unsparing eye for detail and that superpower of detachment - a narrator who sees everything yet who is also deeply involved in the story, with emotional flourishes that rise when she watches her grandson * Age * Her perfect prose and sharp observations are a joy * Sydney Morning Herald * Garner's prose is as luminous as ever * Australian Book Review * The sentences are precise and they sing. Garner turns from philosophical reverie on mortality, or violence, or masculine shame, to capturing the looseness and love with which a family talks footy . . . It's a book of gentle pleasures and deep meanings . . . As ever, when you put a Helen Garner book down and look up at the world again, you do so with newly sharpened eyes * Monthly * Is there anything more thrilling than reading Helen Garner on everyday things such as haircuts, the Melbourne skyline, ageing, AFL tactics, friendship and half-time oranges? A book for all seasons - not just the footy one! * Gleaner * Writing... with love, humour, and passion. -- John Boyne * Irish Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Orion Publishing Co
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 138 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-3996-2805-1 (9781399628051)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
approx. 11/2026
Weidenfeld and Nicholson
€10.99
Not yet available
Person
Helen Garner was born in Geelong in 1942. She worked as a high school teacher, then as a freelance journalist. Since 1977 she has published novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-fiction. She is the winner of the 2006 inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, the 2016 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for Non-fiction, the 2019 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature and the 2023 Australian Society of Authors Medal. Her books include This House of Grief, Monkey Grip and The Children's Bach.