Following True Stories  published in 1996  The Feel of Steel is Helen Garner’s second collection of non-fiction It comprises thirty-one pieces of varying lengths Longer narratives such as ‘Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice’  about a hair-raising trip to Antarctica  and ‘A Spy in the House of Excrement’  about the outcome of a cleanse-and-fast régime at a spa resort in Thailand  stand beside delicate haiku-like sketches with a faint stitch of narrative  such as ‘Baby Coughs’ and ‘Who Spilt the Wine?’ Large and small beads  they are strung onto strong autobiographical thread