This House of Grief by Helen Garner is a true story that chronicles the murder trial of Robert Farquharson, who is eventually charged for driving into a dam and drowning his three sons – Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2.

The minute I read the first few words of this book, I knew it was game over for me. I began this book with 0 empathy for Farquharson. I figured the book would just amplify and justify this deep anger that everyone must have felt for this man. Garner, however, is brilliant, kind, and the most empathetic of all. She chose to write this book by inserting herself into it, as a spectator and a member of the courtroom. This choice allowed me to navigate my feelings along with hers.

Because of Garner’s detailing of this macabre disaster, I was once again reminded that I must not embody such a black-and-white worldview. She allowed me to find my empathy again.

Initially, I was fueled with thoughts like:

• “How can a parent even think of hurting their children?”
• “He must be a psychopath.”
• “Actually, he’s probably yet another angry man who didn’t know how to handle being rejected by a woman, so he chose violence.”

And then something shifted. As Garner recounted the witnesses’ testimonies, they all described Farquharson to be rather ordinary, even bland; he was a regular, boring guy, a “bloke,” who was trying to figure out how to make some money and was distraught when his wife asked for a divorce. I mean, he even held the door open for Garner at the committal hearing. A psychopath wouldn’t do that, right?

I was most compelled by his ex-wife, Cindy Gambino’s, confident belief that Farquharson did not and would not harm his children. Couple that belief with Gambino’s parents and with a whole bunch of people from the community who kept reiterating that Farquharson was a normal guy who showed up for his kids and would never harm them.

Before you even open the book, if you just google Robert Farquharson you know that he was found guilty, not once, but twice, and is still in jail for the murder of his three children. So you already know the outcome of the book, but you feel compelled to keep flipping the page and I credit Garner’s ability to empathize for this. She showed me that it’s not necessarily a matter of “did he do it or not?”; it’s more so a desire to want to know why because it is so unfathomable to us and almost makes us fear ourselves. Because if a regular, shemgular guy like Robert Farquharson can commit such a heinous act, then can’t we all?

I mean don’t we all, to some extent, have some sort of weird, little voice brewing inside of us? For some of us, it’s small and controlled. For others, it’s bigger and constant and it takes over. So are we really that different from Farquharson? If we were in a similar situation, would we hug our children and drown with them if we had run out of options? I sure hope so, but somehow I find myself questioning that. Are we really as “good” and “righteous” as we say we are? Or are we selective with our righteousness?

Garner ends the book with the following:

“Every stranger grieves for them. Every stranger’s heart is broken. The children’s fate is our legitimate concern. They are ours to mourn. They belong to all of us now.”

Those last few sentences sucker punched me in the gut. It woke me up out of my trance. I was so invested in trying to figure out if Farquharson intentionally killed his children that I had forgotten to mourn for the children. They died a painful death, thinking that they were safe in the company of their father.

They are ours to mourn. They do belong to all of us now.