Between My Father and the King

Starred review from February 25, 2013
Acclaimed New Zealander Frame (1924–2004) left behind a legacy of exceptional writing, both fiction and nonfiction, and this new collection of 28 short stories that span her career (many of which have never been published) showcases her extraordinary gifts as an imaginative storyteller with a singular viewpoint. Frame grasps an image and the emotion behind it in a few spare words. In “The Plum Tree and the Hammock,” she inhabits the mind of a young girl whose heart belongs to a boy who “cycled by in a flash of handsome pallor on his black and silver bicycle.” And in “The Birds of the Air,” she describes the anticipation of a grandmother’s visit: “an excitement like Christmas enhanced our lives.” Even the weather, in “I Got a Shoes,” is transformed by Frame’s lovely vision: “It rained big drops, pelting down hard like a punishment.” The chilling observations of “A Night at the Opera,” where a building housing “disturbed” patients is viewed as “a dirty brick imbecile waiting for food”; and “Gorse is not People,” whose heartbreaking Naida—a woman institutionalized for being a dwarf—believes that by turning 21 she can leave the mental hospital where she’s been housed for 11 years, were clearly inspired by the author’s own time in a mental institution. These stories—with themes of despair, disappointment, and wonder, underscored by Frame’s melancholy and vivid turns of phrase—are beautifully rendered.

Starred review from March 1, 2013
A treasure-trove of stories, from the very earliest she ever published, to work published posthumously, from the late, great Frame. Frame (1924-2004)--author of more than 20 books in multiple genres, winner of every literary prize she was eligible for in her native New Zealand, honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Literature--is a master. Thirteen of the 28 stories in this collection were unpublished in her lifetime, though one of the best, "The Gravy Boat," was read aloud by the author on radio in 1953. The gravy boat, part of a set of china given to a retiring "Locomotive engineer," leaves the recipient at sea. "I Got a Shoes," "A Night at the Opera" and "Gorse is Not People" concern themselves with the insane and the institutions where they waste away, patronized and abused. All harrowing, the latter two are masterpieces. "The Wind Brother" is a fairy tale, "The Silkworms" a savage parody of the big fish in the small pond, "Gavin Highly" a piercing parable about the difference between meaning and value. According to the notes, many of the stories may be autobiographical; many cover material that Frame treated elsewhere. A mere 30 pages, "The Big Money" is the longest story. Told from the perspective of a youngest son, it follows the descent of a family, from gentle semirural poverty to urban squalor and tragedy, and hinges on a single hilarious misunderstanding. All overflow with dazzling observation and unforgettable metaphor: "a blue vein, like the thin giggle from inside a fish, lying, throbbing, under his skin." A powerful collection.

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Starred review from April 15, 2013
Frame, who died in 2004, was one of New Zealand's preeminent writers. American readers recognize her primarily from her highly acclaimed autobiography, An Angel at My Table (1984), which was successfully filmed by noted director Jane Campion. Twenty-eight of Frame's startlingly direct short stories, more than half of them never published before and none in any of her previous collections, spring forth here in unabashed brilliance. These pieces were written over the expanse of her entire writing career, and the most effective ones are her almost frighteningly accurate scenarios of childhood. The title story stands as the epitome of her traits and merits in the short form. It is a tight, first-person, tongue-in-cheek remembrance of the narrator's father's debt to the English king for money borrowed to buy new furnitureand of how the king's representative just might stop in at any time to make certain the furniture is being well taken care of! This and all the other stories in the collection demonstrate writerly genius in every sentence, are told with charming and often wicked wit, boast visual images conjured with nimble wordplay ( The sky sagged in the middle, there didn't seem to be enough head-room ), and display a warm intimacy between the author and her prose as she writes close to the psychological and autobiographical bone.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)