Janet Frame

Janet Frame
Occupation Novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet
Genres modernism, magic realism, postmodernism
Influences

The New Zealand author Janet Paterson Frame, ONZ, CBE (August 28, 1924 - January 29, 2004) published eleven novels in her lifetime, together with three collections of short stories, a book of poetry, an edition of juvenile fiction, and three volumes of autobiography. Since her death, a twelfth novel and second volume of poetry, and a handful of previously unpublished short stories have been posthumously published.

Frame, well-known for her literary output as well as her personal history, narrowly escaped leucotomy just at the time her first book won a national literary prize.[1] Partly as a result of her dramatic past, which spawned a wide range of biographical myths posited by literary critics and the general public alike.[2][3]Frame, aptly described by scholar Simone Oettli as a writer who paradoxically wanted simultaneous fame and anonymity,[4] is arguably more well-known for her life than she is for her life's work. Although Frame's writing — which eschewed the dominant New Zealand literary realism of the time, combining prose, poetry, modernist and postmodernist elements with a somewhat magical realist style[5] — garnered mixed critical and public reception,[6] her status as a respected novelist of international repute, coupled with her remarkable life-story, immortalised in her autobiographies and director Jane Campion's popular film-adaptation of the texts, have earned her a place in twentieth-century literary history.

Contents

Biographical overview

Oamaru: The clock tower on the old Post Office, vividly described in Frame's debut novel, Owls Do Cry, as well as in her third volume of autobiography, The Envoy from Mirror City

Janet Frame was born in Dunedin in the south east of New Zealand's South Island. She was the third of five children, born to Scottish New Zealander parents.[7] Her father, George Frame was a railway worker, and her mother Lottie (née Godfrey), was a former housemaid to the family of writer Katherine Mansfield. She was delivered by Dr Emily Hancock Siedeberg, New Zealand's first female medical graduate, at St. Helen's Hospital in 1927.

Frame spent her early childhood years in various small towns in New Zealand's South Island provinces of Otago and Southland, including Outram and Wyndham, before the family eventually settled in the coastal town of Oamaru (recognisable as the "Waimaru" of her début novel and further featured in her subsequent fiction[8]). As described in detail in her autobiographies, Frame's childhood featured the deaths of two of her sisters, Myrtle and Isabel, who drowned in separate incidents at a young age, and the epileptic seizures suffered by her brother George (referred to as "Geordie" and "Bruddie").[9]

In 1943 Frame began training as a teacher at the Dunedin College of Education, while at the same time auditing courses in English, French and psychology at the adjacent University of Otago.[10] Finishing two years of theoretical studies with mixed results she began a years practical placement at Arthur Street School, which at first went quite well.[11] Later in the year, following a suicide attempt taking a packet of Asprin, Frame began regular therapy-sessions with junior lecturer John Money, to whom she developed a strong attachment,[12] and whose later work as a sexologist specialising in gender reassignment remains controversial.[13]

In September 1945, Frame dramatically abandoned her classroom during a scheduled visit from a school-inspector.[14][15] Shortly thereafter the psychiatric ward of the local Dunedin hospital admitted her for observation, it was during this period that she was first labelled as schizophrenic.[16] Unwilling to return home to her family, where tensions between her father and brother had become increasingly unbearable, was committed to Seacliff Mental Hospital.[17] Over the course of the next eight years, Frame repeatedly readmitted herself to a number of psychiatric hospitals in New Zealand, including Avondale and Sunnyside. While institutionalised, Frame was repeatedly treated with electroconvulsive therapy and then, when this became unbearable, with Insulin shock therapy.[9][18]

In 1951, while Frame remained in Seacliff, New Zealand's Caxton Press published her first book, a slim volume of short stories titled The Lagoon and Other Stories.[19] The volume was awarded the Hubert Church Memorial Award, at that time one of the nation's most prestigious literary prizes, which resulted in the cancellation of her scheduled lobotomy.[20][21] Four years later, in 1955, following her final discharge from Seacliff, Frame met the New Zealand writer Frank Sargeson.[22] From April 1955 to July 1956 Frame lived and worked in an old army hut in the garden of Sargeson's home in Takapuna, producing her first full-length novel, which the publishers — rejecting the author's original title, Talk of Treasure — released as Owls Do Cry (Pegasus, 1957).[23]

Frame left New Zealand in 1956, living and working for the subsequent seven years in Europe, primarily based in London, with sojourns in Ibiza and Andorra.[9][24] While abroad, Frame — still struggling with anxiety and depression — once again readmitted herself[25] to psychiatric hospital, this time the Maudsley in London, where American-trained psychiatrist Alan Miller, who studied under Money at Johns Hopkins University, decided that she had never suffered from schizophrenia.[9][26]. In an effort to alleviate the ill-effects of her years spent in and out of psychiatric hospital, Frame then began regular sessions with the psychoanalyst R.H. Cawley, who encouraged her to continue to pursue her writing, and to whom she would eventually dedicate seven of her novels.[27] As her biographer notes, in the subsequent years when Frame felt her mental status had been unjustly called into question, the author would respond by brandishing a letter she solicited from Cowley testifying to her sanity.[28].

Frame eventually returned to New Zealand in 1963 and accepted the Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1965.[29] In subsequent years, the author lived in several different parts of New Zealand's North Island, including Auckland, Taranaki, Wanganui, the Horowhenua, Palmerston North, Waiheke, Stratford, Browns Bay and Levin.[30]

Frame also travelled a great deal, principally to the United States, where she received offers of residencies at the artists' colonies MacDowell and Yaddo.[31] Partly as a result of these extended stays abroad, Frame developed close relationships with a number of Americans.[32] These included the gay painter Theophilus Brown (whom she subsequently referred to as "the chief experience of my life", [33]) and his long-time partner Paul John Wonner, along with the gay novelist May Sarton, as well as John Marquand, Jr. and Alan Lelchuck, among others. In addition, Frame's one-time teacher/therapist and longtime friend John Money lived and worked in North America from 1947 onwards, and Frame frequently used his home in Baltimore as a base.[34]

In the 1980s Frame authored three volumes of autobiography (To the Is-land, An Angel at my Table and The Envoy from Mirror City) which collectively trace the course of her life leading up to her return to New Zealand in 1963.[9] Director Jane Campion and screenwriter Laura Jones adapted the trilogy, first intended for television broadcast, but eventually released as an award-winning feature film, An Angel at my Table, wherein a trio of actresses, (Kerry Fox, Alexia Keogh and Karen Fergusson) portray the author at various ages. As a result of the autobiographies, which sold more than any of the author's previous publications,[35] and, even more so, Campion's widely successful film-adaptation of the texts,[36] a new generation of readers encountered the author and her work, pushing Frame increasingly into the public eye.

Frame's memoirs, as the author, her biographer, and her publishers and critics have noted, aimed to "set the record straight" regarding her past and, in particular, regarding her mental status.[37][38] Indeed, repeated critical and public speculation has often focused on the subject of Frame's mental health,[39] most recently with rehabilitation-physician Sarah Abrahamson's suggestion that Frame may register on what is commonly referred to as the autistic spectrum.[40] Although some contested Abrahamson's editorial, most vehemently Frame's niece and current literary executor Pamela Gordon,[41][42][43] who herself has a daughter with autism,[44] both the New Zealand Medical Journal[45] and the author[46] defended the work.

In spite of Frame's late-found notoriety, the elderly author generally avoided the limelight, although it has been suggested that journalists and commentators have occasionally over-stated her drive for anonymity and seclusion. Indeed, Frame sustained an extended network of friends and made occasional appearances at literary festivals in New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

1983 saw Frame become a Commander of the Order of British Empire (CBE) for services to literature, and in 1990 she received membership of the Order of New Zealand, the country's highest civil honour.[47] Frame also held foreign membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received honorary doctorates from two New Zealand universities, and achieved recognition as a cultural icon in her native New Zealand.[48]

Rumours occasionally circulated portraying Frame as a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, most notably in 1998, when she was singled-out as the front-runner for the prestigious award after a journalist spotted her name at the top of a list subsequently revealed to be in alphabetical order,[49] [50]and again five years later, in 2003, when Asa Bechman, the influential chief literary critic at the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, wrongly predicted that the author would win the prize.[51]

In 2000, the popular New Zealand historian Michael King published his authorised biography of Frame, Wrestling with the Angel, simultaneously released in New Zealand and North America, with British and Australian editions appearing in subsequent years.[9] King's exhaustive work attracted equal measures of praise and criticism; some questioned the extent to which Frame guided the hand of her biographer,[52][53] with one critic likening King's role to that of a ventriloquist's dummy,[54] while others argued that he had failed to come to terms with the complexity and subtlety of his subject.[55] King defended the project and maintained that future biographies on Frame would eventually fill in the gaps left by his own work.[56]

Janet Frame died in Dunedin in January 2004, aged 79, from acute myeloid leukaemia, shortly after becoming one of the inaugural recipients of New Zealand's newly-minted "Icon" and Prime Minister's awards for the arts.[57][58] Since her death, publishers have released several posthumous works in New Zealand, including a volume of poetry entitled The Goose Bath, which was awarded the country's top poetry prize in 2007, generating some controversy among the local literati,[59][60] and a previously unpublished novel, Towards Another Summer, largely based on a weekend Frame spent with British journalist Geoffrey Moorhouse and his family.[61][62] The local New Zealand media likewise reacted with great interest when, in 2008, two previously unpublished short stories set in mental hospitals appeared in The New Yorker.[63]

Literary works

Novels

Short stories

Children's fiction

Poetry

Autobiography

Separately published stories and poems

Articles, reviews, essays and letters

Awards and honours

See also

References

  1. ↑ Martin, Douglas (January 30, 2004). "Janet Frame, 79, Writer Who Explored Madness". New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-11-17.
  2. ↑ Brown, R. "The unravelling of a mad myth." Women's Studies Journal 7(1): 66-74.
  3. ↑ Wiske, Maria. Materialisations of a Woman Writer: Investigating Janet Frame's Biographical Legend Peter Lang (SW): 2006
  4. ↑ Oettli, Simone. Rev. Wrestling with the Angel: A Life of Janet Frame, by Michael King. World Literature Today 76.1 Winter 2002: 142.
  5. ↑ "A literary angel mourned" - New Zealand Herald, Saturday 31 January 2004
  6. ↑ Reid, Tony. "Visionary view of the 'tapestry of words.'" Interview with Janet Frame. New Zealand Herald February 12, 1983: 2.1
  7. ↑ King 2000, p. 16.
  8. ↑ Leaver-Cooper, Sheila. Janet Frame's Kingdom by the Sea: Oamaru. Dunmore (NZ), 1997
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Frame, Janet. An Autobiography Century Hutchinson (NZ), 1989.
  10. ↑ King 2000, p. 51-2.
  11. ↑ King 2000, p. 61-2.
  12. ↑ King 2000, p. 64-5.
  13. ↑ Colapinto, John. As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who was Raised as a Girl. Harper Collins, 2000.
  14. ↑ King 2000, p. 66.
  15. ↑ Lloyd, Mike. "Frame Walks Out." Kotare 5.1, 2004. http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Whi051Kota-t1-g1-t4.html#name-120555-1
  16. ↑ King 2000, p. 69-70.
  17. ↑ King 2000, p. 71.
  18. ↑ King 2000, p. 97, 105.
  19. ↑ King 2000, p. 106.
  20. ↑ Frame, Janet. An Autobiography Century Hutchinson (NZ), 1989.
  21. ↑ King 2000, pp. 111-2.
  22. ↑ King 2000, pp. 123-4.
  23. ↑ King 2000, p. 133.
  24. ↑ King 2000, p. 144.
  25. ↑ King 2000, p. 184.
  26. ↑ King 2000, p. 186.
  27. ↑ King 2000, pp. 196-7.
  28. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  29. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  30. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  31. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  32. ↑ King, Michael. 'Janet Frame: Antipodean phoenix in the American chicken coop." Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature 15:(2): 86-87; December 2001.
  33. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  34. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  35. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  36. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  37. ↑ Frame, Janet. "My Say." Interview with Elizabeth Alley. Concert Programme. Radio New Zealand, Wellington, NZ. 27 April 1983. Rpt In the Same Room: Conversations with New Zealand Writers. Ed. Elizabeth Alley and Mark Williams. Auckland: Auckland UP, 1992.
  38. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  39. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  40. ↑ Abrahamson, Sarah. ""Did Janet Frame have high-functioning autism?"". Retrieved on 2008-05-01.
  41. ↑ Hann, Arwen. "Autism Claim Draws Fire from Family, Mum." The Press [NZ]. 22 October 2007: 10.
  42. ↑ Sharp, Iain. "Frame of Mind" Sunday Star Times [NZ]. 21 October 2007: C8.
  43. ↑ Smith, Charmian. "Putting Janet in the Frame." Otago Daily Times [NZ]. 27 October 2007: 45.
  44. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  45. ↑ Frizelle, Frank A. "Peer review of NZMJ articles: issues raised after publication of the viewpoint article on Janet Frame." http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/120-1264/2788
  46. ↑ Abrahamson, Sarah. "Author responds to criticism of her 'Did Janet Frame have high-functioning autism?' viewpoint article. http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/120-1264/2787
  47. ↑ The Order of New Zealand Honours List.
  48. ↑ The New Zealand Edge. http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/frame.html
  49. ↑ MacLeod, Scott. “Reclusive Frame tipped as leading Nobel candidate.” New Zealand Herald. 2 October 2003.
  50. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  51. ↑ Fox, Gary. "Sth African J M Coetzee awarded Nobel prize for Literature, dashing hopes of NZ writer Janet Frame." IRN News. 3 October 2003
  52. ↑ Ricketts, Harry. "A life within the frame." The Lancet [UK] November 10, 2001: 1652.
  53. ↑ Wilkins, Damien. "In the Lock-Up." Landfall 201 [NZ] May 2001: 25-36
  54. ↑ Evans, Patrick. "Dr. Clutha’s Book of the World: Janet Paterson Frame, 1924-2004" http://www.engl.canterbury.ac.nz/research/pde3.htm
  55. ↑ Wikse, Maria. "Materialisations of a Woman Writer: Investigating Janet Frame's Biographical Legend" Bern (SW): Peter Lang, 2006.
  56. ↑ King, Michael. "The Compassionate Truth" Meanjin Quarterly 61.1 (2002) 34
  57. ↑ Herrick, Linda. "Belated recognition for 'icons' of arts." New Zealand Herald July 2, 2003
  58. ↑ Kitchin, Peter. "Daring to be different." The Dominion Post [NZ] July 9, 2003.
  59. ↑ Moore, Christopher. "Dubious Decision" The Press (Christchurch, NZ), 1 August 2007
  60. ↑ "Good for the Gander" The Listener (NZ) 18 August 2007
  61. ↑ King 2000, p. .
  62. ↑ Moorehouse, Geoffrey. "Out of New Zealand" Guardian [UK] November 16, 1962.
  63. ↑ Mathews, Philip. "Back on the page" The Press (Christchurch, NZ), 26 July 2008

Sources

External links

Persondata
NAME Frame, Janet Paterson
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clutha
SHORT DESCRIPTION Author
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Dunedin, New Zealand
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 2004
PLACE OF DEATH Dunedin, New Zealand