New Zealand Listener – August 10, 2019

78 LISTENER AUGUST 10 2019

language was seldom confident. In public
she appeared to be either in retreat, or held
against her will. When she faced an unex-
pected camera, the head and torso seemed
to be dragged to face it while the feet and
legs were already turning, or
tending, away. Yet (one of
so many paradoxes) on the
very few occasions when
she consented to read in
public, the effect was sensa-
tional. Her voice was light,
bell-clear, almost childlike,
but compelling. It matched
her writing perfectly – a kind
of innocence, almost omi-
nously clever.
In private, with family or a
few trusted friends, she could
be quick, witty, articulate,
entertained and entertaining, capable of
everything, not excluding malice. She had
her bad days, but at her best she sparkled
and shone like her own writing.
In addition to the deprivations of her
early childhood, there had been a sequence
of tragedies visited upon the family that
would not have looked out of place among
the curses and plagues of the Old Testament.
Of the five Frame children, Geordie, the
brother, was seriously epileptic. One sister,
Myrtle, had a heart seizure and drowned at

16. Ten years later, Isabel, aged 20, died in
    exactly the same way. Janet fell into suicidal
    depressions in her late teens and spent most
    of a decade in mental institutions.
    That left June, the sister on whose com-
    panionship and support Janet
    relied, especially during the
    latter part of her life, the only
    one of the group to marry
    and have children, and now
    the only survivor. Not a for-
    tunate family, one might say,
    except that it had produced
    a writer whose work, even
    when it was less than perfect
    in execution, seemed to shine
    with the unmistakable quality
    of genius.
    As Janet’s work became
    known in literary circles, cer-
    tain myths grew up around her. One (which
    I believed until it was dispelled by Michael
    King’s biography) was that she had been
    incarcerated against her will for a period of
    10 years. In fact, her medical history was
    not so simple. There was a certain amount
    of coming and going. Janet retreated into
    mental hospitals, at times voluntarily. But
    there were quite long periods when she
    was simply locked away, and in danger of
    remaining there for life. Even worse, there
    had been the threat of a lobotomy – an

operation to sever the frontal lobes of the

brain – which would almost certainly have

destroyed her personality and her creativ-

ity. Her mother had been persuaded to sign

the authorisation for this to be done. Only

the publication of Janet’s first collection of

stories, The Lagoon, and the award of a prize

for it, saved her. Someone in the medical fra-

ternity thought to stop at the last moment

and ask, “Why are we about to make a major

alteration to a brain that can produce prize-

winning fiction?”

Author Frank Sargeson took her in, gave

her the use of the old army hut in his garden

to live and work in, looked after her, encour-

aged her to believe in herself. In letters and

conversations, he liked to dramatise her –

“the madwoman in my garden”. But his

interest in her was selfless, entirely humane

and literary. He treated her exactly as he

treated all his friends, and for her, used to

brutality from some and cloying concern

80 YEARS

In private she could be

quick, witty, articulate,

entertained and

entertaining, capable

of everything, not

excluding malice.

Frame through the ages, from

far left, 1973; in the 1950s; on the

Victoria Embankment, London, in

the early 60s; in 1983; in later life.

Frank Sargeson