Well, I will have to add Janet Frame to my very short list of worthy writers of literature
. Apart from the prose and story being pretty tidy and readable it also struck me as probably representing well the experiences of the time it is set in.
While it may be unlikely that all the experiences would be found in a single family I felt that taken each alone they were likely typical of those of the time. Apart from drawing on her own experiences such as her time in mental institutions, I felt that maybe some of the small town parochialism in characters was something she had been sensitized to from living overseas in large cities and being an alert observer of the comparisons, an alertness that is often not in many with a smug self centered opinion of this country, even if travelled.
I have read one of her autobiographies, long ago, but remember little of it. Maybe it and others of her novels may get a look-in from me. It has also prompted me to look out Jane Mander's
The Story of a New Zealand River written much earlier (1920) and has some reputation and is still in print.