The Spare Room by Helen Garner

As Helen awaits the arrival of her friend Nicola to stay, she prepares her spare room to be as comfortable as possible. 

When Nicola arrives in Melbourne, Helen is shocked to see her friend looking so frail in their first meeting since Nicola’s cancer diagnosis and knows that her 4 week stay with her will be a long one.

While she’s in Melbourne, Nicola has a treatment plan booked at an Institute specialising in alternative therapy in the hope of pro-longing the inevitable, but when Helen learns what she has to go through prior to her arriving home looking worse for wear, she doesn’t hold back when trying to persuade Nicola that it’s a fraud.

With Nicola convinced the doctors know what they’re doing, Helen leaves her to do it, but she begins to struggle herself with the constant bed changing and lack of sleep to the point where she resents Nicola being there.

While she tries to remain supportive, Helen agrees to join Nicola at her treatment sessions, but when Nicola’s health takes a turn for the worse, she soon realises that no matter good a friend you are, where illness is involved, even the strongest friendships can suffer.

This novel was a brutally honest account of how someone can struggle with an illness even though they’re not the one with the diagnosis.

Despite the subject of the story, I didn’t become overly involved in it and found myself siding with Helen, the put upon friend which made me question how I would cope in a similar situation – hopefully I’ll never have to find out.