Janet Frame was a unique and troubled soul whose luminous words are the more precious,
' Hilary Mantel

'Her dark, eloquent song captured my heart'
Jane Campion

'All my preoccupations as a writer - my notions of home, beauty, madness of sorts and longing - come from her'
Meg Mason

There is nothing in the world the matter with me, except that I have been bathed in a trough and dipped under a waterfall and the pine-needles picked from my scars. . .

This is the story of the Withers family:
Francie, soon to leave school to start work at the woollen mills;
Toby, whose days are marred by the velvet cloak of epilepsy;
Chicks, the baby of the family;
and Daphne, whose rich poetic way of seeing the world leads to a heartbreaking life in institutions.

A dazzling, fierce cry of darkness and joy, Janet Frame's debut novel is a poetic masterpiece and a timeless classic of New Zealand literature.

Introduced by Margaret Drabble

'The first great New Zealand novel and a modernist masterpiece . . . the book's immense power to unnerve, astonish and impress endures'
Guardian