''A jewel of a novel about a perfect family falling apart'' DAVID NICHOLLS ''The Children''s Bach is Garner''s masterpiece'' PUBLIC BOOKS ''A perfect novel. I was so stunned that I wanted to run around the block'' RUMAAN ALAM Athena and Dexter Fox are happyThey love each other. They are friends. They live with their 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, one day - years after their lives have taken different directions - Dexter runs into Elizabeth, an old friend from his university daysShe 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. Helen Garner''s perfectly formed novels embody Melbourne''s tumultuous 1970s and 1980sDrawn on a small canvas and with a subtle musical backdrop, The Childre