Towards Another Summer

April 15, 2009
New Zealander Grace Cleave is a writer living in London. Single, 30, and introverted, she copes dreamily with the outside world, her grasp of reality tenuous at best. When she accepts an invitation to spend the weekend with an acquaintance, Philip, and his wife, Anne, she is hoping that the trip will be good for both her and her stalled novel. But from the outset, she is plagued by regrets, fears, terrible self-consciousness, and the conviction that she has turned into a migratory bird. Each step of the painful weekendthe uncomfortable train ride, the awful surprise that Philip has children, the anxiety about when to go to bed, when to awaken, and what to say in the meantimetriggers childhood memories of New Zealand and the many "shifts" her family made for her father's railroad job. Past and present, self and other, animal and humanall become a poetic tangle in Grace's mind. Frame ("An Angel at My Table") wrote this novel in 1963. Now, published five years after her death, this work holds up perfectly, speaking to anyone who has ever felt isolated and different.Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib., Malibu, CA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2009
New Zealand writer Janet Frame (19242004) will stand as one of the most sensitive, forthright, and adventurous illuminators of human consciousness. The author of many celebrated novels, stories, and a three-volume autobiography, Frame survived a turbulent and tragic childhood, mental illness, and nearly disastrous medical treatment to reap numerous awards. The cost of literary success is the subject of this 1963 novel, appearing for the first time in the U.S., about a writer, Grace Cleave, who has left sunny, lush New Zealand for sooty, crushing London. Grace accepts aninvitation to spend a weekend with a kind journalist andhis family in the country, then fails miserably to overcome her debilitating self-consciousness. Equally flummoxed by the snowy landscape and the warmth of Philips household, she turns incoherent and retreats into all-consuming memories of her childhood. Sorevealing is this moody, metaphysical, andrhapsodicnovel, Frame set it aside. Wisely rescued and posthumously published, this exquisite portrait of a mind under pressurewill revitalize appreciation fora poetic master stylist, sharp wit, deep thinker, and consummate artist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)