In this conference paper, available at the Academia.edu repository, Susan Lever compares Stasiland to Helen Garner’s Joe Cinque’s Consolation. The paper 'considers the similarities in approach to real events of Anna Funder's examination of the GDR and its system of surveillance, and Helen Garner's account of the trials of the killer of a young man in Canberra. It argues that the "novelistic", subjective approach to these real events counters the cold rationality of the state, and the legal process. The author/narrators openly side with the victims, speaking for the personal nature of experience, and a feminist perspective.' (From author's abstract.)