Towards Another Summer by Janet Frame

Excellent condition

The Southern Cross cuts through my heart instead of through the sky.

A weekend away from home. But where is home? Is it London? Or New Zealand? Grace Cleave, expatriate novelist living in London, is holidaying in the north of England. When her host asks why she has abandoned her homeland, she replies: 'I was a certified lunatic in New Zealand.

Go back? I was advised to sell hats for my salvation.'

In this previously unpublished novel, Janet Frame explores themes of exile and return, homesickness and belonging. Grace is a migratory bird, longing for her own place in the world, if she can only decide where it is. She is struggling to establish her identity as a writer, but first she must learn to be comfortable in her own skin (feathers and all).

Written in 1963, but held back by the author for posthumous publication, Towards Another Summer is an exquisitely composed precursor to An Angel at My Table, the autobiography Janet Frame wrote twenty years later. This work is a highly personal, acutely observed portrait. Beautifully written, and shot through with self-deprecating humour, it is a fine addition to Janet Frame's oeuvre.