Between My Father and the King: New and Uncollected Stories

by Janet Frame

This brand new collection of 28 short stories spans the length of Frame’s career and contains some of the best she wrote. None of these stories have been published in a collection before, and more than half are published for the first time in Between My Father and the King.

The piece 'Gorse is Not People' caused Frame a setback in 1954, when Charles Brasch rejected it for publication in Landfall and, along with others for one reason or other, deliberately remained unpublished during her lifetime. Previously published pieces have appeared in Harper's Bazaar, the NZ Listener, the New Zealand School Journal, Landfall and The New Yorker over the years, and one otherwise unpublished piece, 'The Gravy Boat', was read aloud by Frame for a radio broadcast in 1953.

In these stories readers will recognize familiar themes, scenes, characters and locations from Frame's writing and life, and each offers a fresh fictional transformation that will captivate and absorb.
Collection first published in NZ as 'Gorse is Not People'

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 25, 2012

About the author

The fate befalling the young woman who wanted "to be a poet" has been well documented. Desperately unhappy because of family tragedies and finding herself trapped in the wrong vocation (as a schoolteacher) her only escape appeared to be in submission to society's judgement of her as abnormal. She spent four and a half years out of eight years, incarcerated in mental hospitals. The story of her almost miraculous survival of the horrors and brutalising treatment in unenlightened institutions has become well known. She continued to write throughout her troubled years, and her first book (The Lagoon and Other Stories) won a prestigious literary prize, thus convincing her doctors not to carry out a planned lobotomy.

She returned to society, but not the one which had labelled her a misfit. She sought the support and company of fellow writers and set out single-mindedly and courageously to achieve her goal of being a writer. She wrote her first novel (Owls Do Cry) while staying with her mentor Frank Sargeson, and then left New Zealand, not to return for seven years.

Reviews

[Will Ansbacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag of 28 unpublished and previously-published stories, all very short, some as little as 2 pages. A number of them are sketches for passages that she later used in Faces in the Water, and still more are recognizable as incidents from her autobiography.

About half are really - even exceptionally – good; writing that would take your breath away. But the rest are so-so, including several very slight stories (particularly some early ones from the Fifties) that I’m sure Janet Frame never meant to be published.

Misunderstanding is a recurring theme: in the longest and most complex of the collection, The Big Money, a child’s father says he is “concerned in” Novelties (sounds more important than novelty salesman, doesn’t it?); later when his mother says she’s “concerned about” her husband, the child thinks he’s been sold. The story neatly charts the little boy’s confusion about bankruptcy, a move to the big city, his parents’ separation and his mother pressuring him to be the “man of the family” now, and leading inexorably to a tragic ending.

I have to say, too, that I often feel that I am misunderstanding or at least missing something in Frame’s vivid but sometimes enigmatic imagery.

There are a couple of nice vignettes of Frame’s bête noire – kiwi DIY-ers making a racket on weekends. In one, a man starts a new hobby (“I’m glad you’re taking up painting” Ailsa said. Then as an afterthought, “You don’t mean painting?”) and spends a blissful Sunday morning scraping and painting his house.

But my favourite is Gorse is not People (the title story in the original NZ edition) for its contrast between freedom and detention, and the poetic power of her writing.

Naida is an institutional patient who thinks that she’ll be “given the key of the door” when she turns 21. On her birthday she’s driven into the city “to talk to some men” and on the journey asks what the bright yellow flowers in the fields are …

She leaned out the window and stared at the happy chickenlike ruffles of colour; the day was warm and sunny, yet with a thin cotton twist of cloud sewing together the bright blue gaps of sky, and a quick wind gulping down its own breath, and the sweetness of the gorse.
Naida looked around her suddenly at the cruel caging black car. “I want out” she said, pointing to the hills. “There. I want out there, without a birthday. Silly old car.”

The “men” are of course doctors reviewing her case to re-certify her detention as an adult; this too later featured in Faces in the Water.

I had a sense though, that Janet Frame’s works have been well and truly picked over by now, and I’d only rate this collection about 3 ½ stars.

[Jeff Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had this on my to-read list for some time, but I didn’t pick it up until just recently. A podcast of the New Yorker Fiction had Miranda July read Janet Frame’s Prizes. I was quite enchanted with the structure and concept of the story. It’s a reflection on how the things won in childhood are often lost in adulthood. Things that made us stand out and receive praise mean nothing later on. That distinction is suddenly lost to an unremarkable adulthood where these things no longer matter. That story is like many in this uncollected book of short stories by Janet Frame. There is separateness to the work. Her perspective is often one of a child viewing adult situations and feeling so alien. There is a fear of adulthood with all their strange customs. She has figured out the childhood part of life, but not what happens afterward. She is in league with no one, and as a result it seems that anything and everything can stand against her. It is waiting to take everything away, just like her prizes.

Some o f my favorites were My Father and the King, where her father returns home from the war with a 50 pound note (which becomes a theme, the price of one’s life and health). My very favorite was Gain Highly, where a man being evicted from his home tries to sell his precious book collection finding the wealth is in his heart but that it provides no value to the government. I also enjoyed Birds in the Air, where we find the difference between the imagined self and reality, plus the cost of cruelty. Gorse is not People is also very tragic where a young girl’s imagination does not grant her freedom. For an insight into Frame’s writing style, I Do Not Love the Crickets is quite fascinating in its raw emotion.

The one thing I have learned from Frame’s writing style is that her themes run throughout her stories. The stories in this work is very similar to her story Prizes. It seems that everything by Frame has this magic and wonder to it. It isn’t a childhood wonder, but fear of the unknown and strange that drive her work. It seems that she did not agree with adulthood and knowing her personal experience a bit, it is hard to blame her.

Favorite passages:
Dear King, the corresponding dents and stains and wear and tear in my life surely atone for the wear and tear of your precious kerb and hearth rug etc. Please wipe out the debt of fifty pounds or passing by Buckingham Palace I shall drop in to inspect you and claim settlement for your debt to me. P 12

"But then he was the kind of man who is in league with many things--almost everything except people." p. 25

"Your books are very valuable, I told you that, and they are worth a few pounds, no more. The value is inside you, and I'm afraid you cannot take that down in a van to the auction rooms and call for bids upon it. Love does not go under the hammer, ever." P. 30

"The money for her bottom teeth paid the rent so that five weeks in our house were, in a strange way, equal to my mother's bottom teeth. I was absorbed in arithmetic at the time and I had a strong sense of horror when I realized the incongruity of the equation. P 35

"...and that our clever victory made us unhappy because part of the function of parents was their unvarying power to answer with conviction." P. 36

Seeing reason was a most admired gift which everyone claimed for himself and denied to others. Perhaps it was not so important to be able to see it, for when you'd seen it no one believed you and you had to keep telling people you'd seen it, and if there were no witnesses how could you prove it? P 48

Life is sweet, brother.' I hadn't thought about whether life was sweet: I merely tasted and swallowed it; but knew that for some reason Joan wasn't finding much sweetness it; indeed, I could have said that for Joan at thirteen, life was sour. P 50

He who desires completeness is against progress. There is no completeness while Time continues to provide a future. P 136

Most of his friends were married and had borne children who in their turn had borne children, in historic continuity. He felt himself omitted from history, as if in taking up with the marching generations in the beginning of his life he had journeyed so far and then been trapped in a pothole, up to his neck. His head mattered, the bushfires in his head, his work of literature, his reading, and now the silkworms through which he could control history itself, birth, copulation, death. P 137

Yet it all happened thirty years ago or more and does not time smooth and polish to plain the jagged and most lonely mountain of heart? And time offers a sedative too that none will refuse, a balm called use or habit. P 208

[Mark Flowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended - probably around 20 of these 28 newly collected stories are first-rate Frame. Another few are worth inclusion, and just 3 or 4 are not worthwhile. Even given the high rate of success, a little caution is warranted, in that this isn't a true "collection"--it's just an odds and ends pile with no real central meaning to it, other than Frame's unstoppable genius. Still--read it for those 20-25 stories.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a variety of short stories - 28 in all, some of which were published in magazines, some never published during the author's life. Frame was a New Zealand author who died in 2004. Most of the stories were written in the 50's and 60's. I have not read her work before and I was definitely entertained by quite a few of the stories.

[Emma McCleary · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my most comforting memories of primary school is being read to aloud. With our head on our desks, the warmth of the radiator on our backs and the smell of wet jackets filling the air our teacher read to us and let our imaginations roam.

It’s a similar feeling of homeliness, warmth and comfort I get when I read Janet Frame. I first read Faces in the Water in my first year at Art School; standing in the ground floor of Dunedin’s Central Library I wanted something to read and the name ‘Janet Frame’ seemed familiar but I didn’t know why.

As I devoured that book, then her three-book autobiography, then Owls Do Cry, the New Zealand described – particularly the southern most parts – felt so familiar and so real to me. I wanted to keep parts of these magical books so copied out passages about jars of marigolds and tiled floors of sandwiches and roses growing over carpets and fire guards into a special notebook so I could remember them and keep them close; the best parts.

Since that first reading I’ve firmly held Janet Frame as my favourite author and worked through most of her catalogue over time.

It’s with some embarrassment that I tell you that Penguin Books sent me a review copy of Gorse is Not People in August last year. And with some unashamed greediness that I admit to purposefully reading it slowly, savouring its stories and words so it might (almost) never end.

Gorse is Not People brings together 28 short stories by Janet Frame that span the length of her career. None of these stories has been published in a collection before – several are previously unpublished works in their own right and others have been published in well-known magazines such as The New Yorker.

This is the stuff of classic Frame. Rich layered writing with immediately imaginable characters – at times with a dose of fairytale and more than once with a desperate and deep sadness.
Readers of Faces in the Water will immediately identify with the grim prospects of Naida in the title story and the shabby below-par evening activity of a film showing when it’s too light to see the film - as described in ‘A Night at the Opera.’

“So it was decided to show films in Park House itself, in the dayroom, after the more violently uncontrollable patients had been put to bed. There would be no screen. The walls, though gravy- and sausage-stained, and stuck with bits of apple pie, were of a light colour, but unfortunately there were no blinds, and the daylight at that time of year was not of a secretive nature but outspoken and honest, and preferred the company of the sky to being tucked down between hills. Our bedtime was half past six. How could we see a film in that light? ‘Your bedtime can be extended, an hour perhaps,’ the matron said graciously. The first film, it was decided would be shown in a week’s time, on a Tuesday.” [A Night at the Opera]
There’s a lot here too for fans of To the Is-land, An Angel at my Table and The Envoy from Mirror City as fuller stories and adaptations are made from pieces of these works – the story ‘Dot’ most memorably as Frame takes her childhood love for a local children’s newspaper columnist and gives it a sinister edge.

Stories like ‘The Wind Brother’ and ‘The Friday Night World’ have a fairytale quality to them – magical overtures that would appeal to readers of Grimms and Margaret Mahy. This truly is a book for all seasons and readers.

In addition to this books marvellous content, Penguin has done a wonderful job on the production of Gorse is Not People. The small, grey hardcover book with a Toss Wollaston jacket cover feels special - a book to be treasured, to be looked after and one that shouldn’t be rushed.

Five stars from me. A must for Frame fans as well as people looking for magical short stories to spark the imagination and create lasting memories of how great reading can really be.

[Meg Tuite · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's Janet Frame. It's brilliant. Read it.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Janet Frame remains my favorite author of all time. Somehow, these twenty-eight stories weren't published in a collection before 2012. They were all new to me. The first story clocks in at two pages but manages to feel like a novel. It's from the point of view of a child whose father fought in the First World War, which used to be called 'Great' until the truth of its greatness was questioned and the denial of its greatness accepted. The furniture in her home in her "conscienceless childhood days" was bought with a fifty-pound loan from the King, routinely inspected by the King's Representative to verify that it remained in good condition, despite the inevitable wear and tear caused by children. This is the last part of this very short story:

And then perhaps he had one of his bright ideas and that evening as he and my mother sat in the King's armchairs with their feet on the King's cat-stained hearthrug and protected from sparks by the King's wooden kerb, my father took out his own small notebook and pencil and carefully studying the Great War in all its Greatness and himself in it with his fellow soldiers in the trenches, he wrote, inspecting deeply the life and the death and the time and the torture,

Back, shrapnel in; lungs, remains of gas in; night, nightmares in; days, memories in. Dear King, the corresponding dents and stains and wear and tear in my life surely atone for the wear and tear of your precious kerb and hearthrug etc. Please wipe out the debt of fifty pounds or passing by Buckingham Palace I shall drop in to inspect you and claim settlement for your debt to me.

[Chrystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess there's a reason why these stories were previously uncollected. Out of 28 stories there were two I found outstanding ("The Birds of the Air," about a visit from a grandmother who the children have never met before, and "Gorse is not People," about a young woman who is turning 21 and has spent her whole life in a mental institution. These two stories are autobiographical, reminiscent of her novels "Owls do Cry" and "Faces in the Water").

There were a handful of OK stories, nothing special, then the rest seemed either pointless or unfinished.

I wouldn't recommend this collection other than for the two stories listed above, but I would recommend her autobiography and her novels. She really was a good writer with a unique voice. I will need to read her collected stories.

[Phoebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frame was a much-celebrated New Zealand author who died in 2004. This book features brilliant short stories, all wildly different but the same in one regard: pithy and understated. The end notes shed some light onto Frame's motivations, tying the stories to particular times and events in her life. All the stories are about people, mostly in difficult circumstances, who in most cases appear to be in their own little realities. A particularly haunting one is Gorse Is Not People, about a resident of a psychiatric home, worth a second reading. Pick this book up if you enjoy short stories that require some interpretation and discussion.

[Warwick Stubbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the most refreshing things about reading Janet Frame (in general) is her ability to translate the lives and experiences of ordinary people into readable prose, the simple lives they live, the simple experiences they have: the story of a man moving into retirement after being a train engineer his whole life, a male friend keeping a pact after his friend dies, an inpatient who is under the impression she is going to be freed on her 21st Birthday. There is often a sadness at the end of these stories, but what would be straight up depressing in other author's hands where they begin manipulating your emotions early on purposely raising the stakes towards the end, Frame leads the reader through all the way with a gentle hand, a humanistic hand, a caring hand, and even though there is sadness, the reader feels grateful that the pain is real.

The title story and The Big Money are the two longest stories and develop both characters and plot brilliantly with believably insight and view points, though the latter's ending stopped me short wondering why? I mean, I know why, but it just didn't hit me perhaps the way it was meant to. And endings often did disappoint, but perhaps that's a result more of the lives of ordinary people - this isn't fantasy or science-fiction, or thrillers, or romances: it's real people doing real things put onto paper (though more like the 50s-70s versions of "real people". And New Zealand versions - mustn't forget that!). There are two stories in the middle that were written for children and they do touch on the fabulous, The Wind Brother being a memorable story about stolen mail!

But eventually, about 3/4 the way through I got over reading about ordinary people and wanted to read about unusual ppl in unusual situations.

Without doubt, even in these unpublished posthumous stories, there is the hand of a master writer working, but I do think Frame lacks the special dialogue and descriptions that have made Katherine Mansfield so highly regarded in her plotless "stories".

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Owls do Cry is a favourite novel of mine so I cannot tell you why it has taken me years to pick up a second book of Frame’s, yet it has. Based on what I have read so far, I can say I love her work for it's beauty, it's wit, realism, vivacity, simplicity and it's charm.

This collection is definitely not all rainbows and lollipops – some of these pieces are semi-autobiographical and Frame’s struggles with her mental health and her ghastly experiences with the mental health system are well documented, so if you are expecting an uplifting read you may well be disappointed. Frame's observations from the perspective of a child are especially brilliant, so too her capacity to capture the loneliness, confusion and isolation of the marginalised, including the elderly, the grieving and the institutionalised. In short, her understanding and representation of humanity in general is amazing.

There are some lovely pieces of magical realism too, though these were targeted at a younger audience (originally published in NZ school journals).

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saw this in the new books section of the library and picked it up because of the cover and title. Decided to read it because it was by a New Zealand author and thought I could learn a little more about the country and its people. Enjoyed most of the short stories; some were a little dark, dealing with mental institutions, but overall a good read.

[Jane Ciabattari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Reminded me how good Jane Frame is...

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books...

[Gabrielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer - I'm not a fan of short stories.

This collection has some stories I loved: the first one in the collection Between My Father and The King is an example of this. Some I liked and others I found hard to engage with or long.

That Janet Frame though! What a writer!

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I read, I thought of Kipling's fables, the parsee's turban that shown with "more than oriental splendor," bringing magic into the everyday world. There's so much more there than was shown in Jane Campion's biopic.

[Kelly Lynn Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic collection of short stories, many of them fabulist/magical realist. Frame's short work is understated, which I like.

[Eric Hinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Janet Frame book so far. With 28 stories, it's jam packed with all of her different styles and brilliances. Lovely stuff.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I was underwhelmed by the first volume of Janet Frame's autobiography (To The Is-Land), her short fiction is something else entirely: this is the Janet Frame I was hoping to discover.

Most of the pieces in this volume are quite short (typically just a handful of pages), but Frame's ability to write with an appeal to all of the senses is remarkable. It doesn't take her many words to convey the aural, visual, and even the olfactory characteristics of her settings, and these rich surroundings serve to enhance the humanity of her characters, who come alive in the fullness of their environments.

There are a couple of key pieces in this volume that really stood out for me. The final story ("I Do Not Love the Crickets") is something of an artistic manifesto, as Frame explores the conflict between the "art-I" and the "life-I", by which she tries to isolate the silence and stillness necessary to her creative process. The story is filled with strident statements in defense of that process, such as:

Life interferes with art; life is the irritation. Always. And yet there are some who plead, innocently, for further life-involvement of the artist!

But of course, the author is fully human, and the story ultimately reveals her intense dependence on the noise and chaos of mundane human life as catalysts for her writing.

The other story that sticks with me is "Gavin Highly", a heartfelt exploration of gentle madness and the glories and the pitfalls of an isolated life. Although the titular protagonist has tenuous connections to the physical world he inhabits, his peculiar inner life is rich (if not resplendent). Frame clearly has a deep sympathy with her character, and her embrace makes a king out of an otherwise humble man.

[Barb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not enjoy

I made a valiant effort to finish this book, but found myself just flipping the pages in my hurry to get to the end. I found this book dull and boring.

[Gaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting (and varied) selection of short stories, with wonderfully crafted characters that had me smiling and reminiscing about past experiences.

[Patricia Wchman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not too much a fan of short stories.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 3 star rating here is the average for these stories. Half are excellent 5 star stories and the rest are leftovers. My favorites are Between My Father and the King, The Plum Tree and the Hammock, Gavin Highly (a reader who's told that his books are worthless), The Birds of the Air, and University Entrance. Gorse is Not People and A Night at the Opera are just exceptionally well written stories about people in mental hospitals. The Wind Brother is a funny fairy tale of two children trying to understand the new Air Mail at the post office.

[Patir Hirs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of stories is all over the map in emotional content and themes which makes it a bit of a hard read. A couple of the stories were very unsettling. You find yourself hoping you will be able to forget it. I had no experience with this author and will probably not read anything else by her. I did enjoy the minute detail in her narratives because it painted a visual picture that was quite tangible.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of stories by a very careful, clear writer. I enjoyed the greater majority the few I didn't were of the fantasy variety.

[Cedric Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to believe she was almost lobotomized but received a last minute reprieve because of a literary award... so sane, so great.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful range of short stories in length, subject matter, and connection to reality

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Janet Frame is a new author for me. Her book of short stories

[Kris]

Blech. Short stories.
I tried. I moved on!