Your patience will reward you
At regular intervals throughout this book, I felt like giving up. Yet I was stangely intrigued. Welcome to the world of Frame's fiction. This was my first encounter with Janet Frame - if you're a first time Frame reader, I would start with another book (Owls Do Cry is apparently a good starting place). If you're used to Frame's style, this book will come as less of a shock to you. She breaks the narrative rules willfully and so completely that you will find yourself lost within a plot that to me felt like a magical forrest.
Divided into three parts, and set in both the past and the (not unbelievable) future, this book looks at death, hope and dreams. From Tom Livingstone to Milly, Frame takes you on a magical mystery tour that is well worth going on. Your patience will be rewarded by a text so rich and diverse that you could read it again and again, and still find some hidden corner of delight awaiting you in the narrative.
Withhold your preconceptions and suspend your disbelief - it's well worth it to enter into the world of Frame.
