The Australian writer’s decision to publish her diaries in her own lifetime – subjecting herself to scorching observations on self-doubt and unravelling marriages – makes for a wonderfully rich and rewarding readWhen I began reading Helen Garner’s How to End A Story: Collected Diaries, about to be published in Britain for the first time, I kept copying little pieces of them into the book that I keep on my desk. Here was something that was beautiful, and there was something that was wise: unable to let these jewels go, my pen scratched on and on. At a certain point, however, I had to give up. These journals run to more than 800 pages, every single one of which contains a passage of such distilled acuity and brilliance, it leaves you half drunk with exhilaration. At this rate, I thought, I’m going to end up writing out half the bloody book.How good it is in middle age to be surrounded by so many wonderful older Australian female writers: Michelle de Kretser, Charlotte Wood, Garner above all. From afar, they blow something into my life I seem to need. In the case of Garner’s diaries, this may be an acknowledgment of how things truly are for women; her anger, white hot on the page even at many years’ distance, makes me feel that my own is not, after all, misplaced. People say that diaries should only be published posthumously, that there’s bad faith – and murderous intent on the part of the unconscious – in going ahead while you’re alive. In this case, though, I have to disagree. Oh, the sheer unwavering bravery of it! Garner burned diaries dating from an earlier period than