Customer Reviews

Towards Another Summer

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We have come to expect posthumous works to be inferior to those the artist chooses to release in their own lifetime. This is no exception.

Although savvy publishers have marketed this novella as "too personal" for publication in Frame's lifetime, it seems more likely that the author held it back not because it was too revealing (indeed, her early novels are far more personal) but because it failed to meet her own high standards.

Those familiar with Frame's fiction will most likely be disappointed by this work, which seems to be less a fully-fledged work of fiction than a protracted personal essay. Here, many of the subtleties and complexities of Frame's best work are reduced to mere observations and asides, while her gift for metaphor and cadence likewise suffers. It is telling that Frame wrote this while struggling to complete another novel, as this sense of frustration and uncertainty infects "Towards Another Summer."

In short, this work is recommended reading for completists only.

When approaching a posthumous work, one always wonders if it is as good or as relevant as the rest of a writer's production. Towards another summer is one of those rare books which haunt you long after you've closed it. And so yes, thinking back about the novel, one feels gratitude that it exists... and could be published.

Jane Campion once said of Janet Frame that "A poetic soul has rarely come better disguised." In Towards Another Summer, the feathery disguise worn by the artist(she is a migratory bird) barely conceals her poetic soul.

Perhaps too easily enticed by an unexpected-last novel from the inimitable Janet Frame, I found this book a necessary completion of her life's work and a must-read for any Frame devotee. Like many of Frame's novels, Towards Another Summer may hold narrative as secondary to prose, but this has been - and remains - one of the many small beauties of her work.

Towards Another Summer

Janet Frame is one of my favorite authors. This book was supposed to be her most personal and wasn't released until after her death. Frame was a fragile person with an excellent prose style of writing. I read this book in 2 days. If you love Janet Frame, read this book.