Janet Frame
A previously unpublished story by Janet Frame, which was
rejected 50 years ago for being "too painful" to publish, has
appeared in the latest edition of
The New Yorker.
Gorse is not People was written by Frame in 1954, but
was later rejected by Landfall literary magazine editor
Charles Brasch on the grounds it was "too painful to print".
The story is about a dwarf called Naida who visits Dunedin on
her 21st birthday.
It was based on observations Frame made during a supervised
day trip to Dunedin with a dwarf when she was a patient at
the Seacliff mental hospital.
"She was so devastated when it was rejected 50 years ago,"
Frame's niece Pamela Gordon said yesterday.
"She was living in the attic room at the Grand Hotel in
Dunedin [now the Southern Cross Hotel] at the time and
working as a live-in waitress."
Frame had submitted Gorse is not People and two poems
for publication in Landfall.
She later wrote of her despair at receiving the rejection
letter from Brasch in the second of her three-volume
autobiography, An Angel at My Table.
"Mr Brasch's comments were that the work was interesting, but
the poems were not quite suitable, while the story, Gorse
is not People, was too painful to print," Frame wrote.
"When I had read the note on its official Landfall paper, I
began to realise how much I had invested in my Landfall
contributions and their acceptance for publication.
"I seemed to have included my whole life and future in that
envelope. I felt myself sinking into empty despair. What
could I do if I couldn't write?
"Writing was to be my rescue. I felt as if my hands had been
uncurled from their clinging place on the rim of the
lifeboat."
Ms Gordon said Frame would have been delighted at the
posthumous recognition of her work.
"It's a source of great emotion for me now, on Janet's
behalf, that this heartbreaking story has appeared after over
50 years of waiting."
The story was published this week in the September 1 edition
of The New Yorker.
The 2008 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award will be announced
tomorrow, on what would have been Frame's 84th birthday.
She died in Dunedin in January 2004, aged 79.
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