The Book Prize Index

How to End a Story: Collected Diaries

Helen Garner

Helen Garner's third volume of diaries is an account of a woman fighting to hold on to a marriage that is disintegrating around her. Living with a great writer who is consumed by his work, and trying to find a place for her own spirit to thrive, she rails against the confines while desperate to find the truth in their relationship -- and the truth of her own self. This is a harrowing story, a portrait of the messy, painful, dark side of love lost, of betrayal and sadness and the sheer force of a woman's anger. But it is also a story of resilience and strength, strewn with sharp insight, moments of joy and hope, the immutable ties of motherhood and the regenerative power of a room of one's own.

Memoir & AutobiographyMemoir & Autobiography · medium confidenceMemoir & Autobiography81 signalsLlm Classifier: Memoir & Autobiography -> Memoir & AutobiographyOpen Library: Autobiography: writers -> Memoir & AutobiographyOpen Library: Biography -> BiographyGroup BiographyMemoir & Personal History

Award History

1 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-FictionMajor2025WinnerSecondary source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact. Automated checks have flagged this profile for extra review.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Helen Garner78%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    30 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.