Review: Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner - A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law

Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner

Released: 1st August 2004

Published by: Macmillan

Genre: True Crime

Source: Library

Pages: 328

My Rating: 5 of 5 stars

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In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests-most of them university students-had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin.


His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died.

It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care. It is a masterwork from one of Australia's greatest writers.

Why wasn’t she down on her knees, grovelling for forgiveness? From the Cinques? From the whole human race? Begging for pardon, and with no sense that she was entitled to it, no expectation of ever receiving it? 

True crime isn't a genre I'd usually choose to read from, but when the opportunity arose to read this book for university, and knowing Helen Garner was a brilliant writer, my curiosity got the better of me. Joe Cinque's Consolation is by all accounts a harrowing read, and yet Garner has provided an insight into the trials of Anu Singh and Madhavi Rao over his death with a sensitivity that makes you feel all the anguish over what could have been...'if only'. It calls into question the morality of the justice system, the quest to make sense of a series of events which it seems could have been prevented on so many occasions, and the pain inflicted on the parents who will always carry the grief over the child they lost so devastatingly.

The fatigue after a long day in court was also a kind of gratitude, I had been granted the inestimable privilege of looking into other people’s lives. What I had found there had absorbed my intellectual and emotional attention for many hours. Unlike the Cinques, unlike the Singhs, I could walk away. 

One of the things I appreciated most about this work was how balanced Garner was in describing both the technicalities of the arguments brought forward by the Crown and the defence, alongside her own subjective views. Through her writing with observations into the legal processes, psychiatric analyses and gaps between hearings and sentencing, there is also an undercurrent of disillusionment and shock as to how the final verdict came to be. Even Justice Crispin's Freudian slip when he first mistakenly stated 'murder' instead of 'manslaughter' arguably indicates a sense of innate injustice. I too felt Garner's utter disbelief, though she also recognised that every element of the judgement was grounded in reason. But how does intellectual reasoning stand against the wrongful taking of a life? This is the anguish that plagues those left behind, and arguably is where the gaping chasm lies between morality and the law. 

She unfolded a tissue and held it to her mouth. She struggled to compose herself. I wanted to cry out with horror, and pity.

It's interesting how the law attempts to categorise social wrongs within neat parameters, with thresholds and rules that dictate the punishment to fit the crime. As Joe Cinque's Consolation proves however, the end result can appear manifestly inadequate. I suppose it's an ethical issue at heart, and one which the judges in positions of power do not take lightly. 'Duty of care' and 'diminished responsibility' are more than just pieces legalistic jargon; here their human impact is felt with full force. Helen Garner's journalistic merit cannot be underestimated on this point, as she looked at the effects of the trials on both the Cinque and Singh families, though she formed a closer relationship with the former. Of course, the most important voice in all of this always remains silent; that of the victim. But through Garner's recounts into the time spent with his family, we have a glimpse into the man Joe Cinque was and the profound suffering that his loved ones have endured. 

If memory is not to be trusted, what can courts rely on? How can they establish what ‘really happened’? How can things from the past, even the relatively recent past, be proved?

FINAL THOUGHTS

Joe Cinque's Consolation may be the first of Helen Garner's works I've read, but it certainly won't be the last. This book raises an array of important issues surrounding justice, the bounds of 'simple wickedness' and the continual struggle to vanquish an unfathomable tragedy. The message that came through which gives the most cause for reflection is that what is ‘just’ and what seems ‘fair’ are often two very different things.