'A jewel of a novel about a perfect family falling apart' DAVID NICHOLLS'A slim, deeply humane work that tingles with life' THE TIMES'One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century' MERVE EMREAthena and Dexter Fox are content. They love each other. They are friends.They live with their two young sons in a sparsely furnished house near the Merri Creek: its walls cracking, its floors sloping and its doors hanging loosely in their frames. There is a piano in their kitchen.But then, Dexter runs into Elizabeth, an old friend from his university days. She brings into his world her loose-living musician boyfriend, Philip, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Vicki.And all at once, the bonds that hold the Fox family together begin to fray. Since its first publication in 1984, The Children's Bach has been hailed as one of only four perfect short novels in the English language, one of the greatest family novels ever written and Garner's masterpiece. A W&N Essential with an introduction by David Nicholls