The Season

Helen Garner, in her eighties and shivering on the sidelines at dusk, sets out to record a single footy season in Melbourne: the one she spends following her youngest grandson's under-16s team before, as she puts it, he turns into a man and she dies. She goes to nearly every game and every training session, a devoted Western Bulldogs supporter with a shaky grasp of the rules and a sharp eye for everything else.

What emerges is part chronicle, part love letter: boys learning grit and grace together, a grandmother fearing for her grandson in the scrum, a team fighting for a place in the finals. Garner writes about masculinity and team spirit with her usual candour and dry humour. For anyone who has stood in the cold watching someone they love play, and felt time moving.