Owls Do Cry - Janet Frame

''Janet Frame was a unique and troubled soul whose luminous words are the more precious'' HILARY MANTEL

''Her dark, eloquent song captured my heart '' JANE CAMPION

''All my preoccupations as a writer - my notions of home, beauty, madness of sorts and longing - come from her'' MEG MASON

So the day promised fair, and the sea lay like a quilt with the waves tucked under, and the trees wavering like leafless water, cut to fit from a transparent block of blue air and frost.

Owls Do Cry tells the story of the Withers family: Francie, who is twelve and about to start work at the woollen mills, hard drudgery sweetened with the thrill of riding a bike to work; Toby, who would rather play at the dump than go to school, where the dark velvet cloak of epilepsy often wraps itself around him; Chicks, the youngest; and Daphne, whose rich poetic way of seeing the world leads to a heartbreaking life in institutions.

Written with lyrical beauty and a deep sensitivity in its depiction of hardship and tragedy, Owls Do Cry is a poetic masterpiece and regarded as one of the best New Zealand novels ever published.

INTRODUCED BY MARGARET DRABBLE

''The first great New Zealand novel and a modernist masterpiece . . . the book''s immense power to unnerve, astonish and impress endures'' Guardian