Wrestling with the Angel: A Life of Janet Frame

Very Good

Hardcover.
JANET FRAME, born in New Zealand's most celebrate public author. Her early life i Island towns seemed, at times tide of doom: one brother still epileptic two sisters dead of
while swimming Frame herse itted to mental hospitals fin the best part of a decade. Later, her surviving sister was temporarily felled in adulthood by a stroke, an uncle cut his throat and a cousin shot his lover, his lover's parents and then himself.
All this propelled. Frame into a territory `where the dying spend their time before death. Those who return alive from such a place, she would say, bring a point-of view equal in its rapture and chilling exposure the neighbourhood of the gods and goddesses. -
This, then, is an inspiring biography of a woman who climbed out of an abyss of unhappiness to take control of her life and become one of the great writers of her time. And to enable her biographer to write this book scrupulously and honestly, Janet Frame spoke fin the first time about her whole fife. She also made available her personal papers and directed her family and friends to be equally communicative.
The result is a biography of astonishing intimacy and frankness. Just as Frame's own
writing takes readers to the boundaries of the knowable, so this book penetrates deeply into the mind and character of its subject.