Lucie Elven

Francesca Wade · Why waste time hot airing? The Best-Paid Woman in NYC Belle da Costa Greene was a trainee librarian at Princeton University when J.P. Morgan hired her to dust and pack his...

‘As J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, she criss-crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of rare manuscripts to add to his collection, outbidding and outsmarting rivals wherever she went.’

Francesca Wade on Belle da Costa Greene:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Two books from above on a wooden table. They’re identical but in different colours. The one on the left is yellow with red and green chunky text that says Fair, the one on the right is blue with chunky black text. Fair the life-art of translation by Jen Calleja

Books have arrived @prototypepubs.bsky.social HQ, out 29 May prototypepublishing.co.uk

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Frame hated noise. She claimed that her street became too loud when, after Macmillan came to power, the residents had the money to buy TVs and record players, though she herself blasted out Schubert to disguise her illicit typing when her landlord was sleeping.’

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Janet Frame found herself stuck in a psychiatric system that took her feeling for language as evidence of madness. When she compared herself to Pierre in “War and Peace”, her doctors thought she was describing a schizophrenic delusion.’

@lucieelven.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Janet Frame found herself stuck in a psychiatric system that took her feeling for language as evidence of madness. When she compared herself to Pierre in “War and Peace”, her doctors thought she was describing a schizophrenic delusion.’

@lucieelven.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Nathan Dragon's collection The Champ is Here sounds really interesting - in a peak NOON way I'd say :) - if you're not convinced by Lucie Elven's lovely review, there's some samples available at nathandragon.com

Worth every penny!

A seafood freak A guest post by beloved friend of the substack Lucie Elven

I loved making a guest appearance on Rachel’s substack to write about (and recommend) Nathan Dragon’s beautiful short story collection, The Champ Is Here.
open.substack.com/pub/rachelco...

LAUNCH: The Passenger Seat By Vijay Khurana Thursday 22nd May  6.30 to 9pm Join us to celebrate the launch of The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana, published by Peninsula Press.  Vijay will be discussing his new novel with Lucie Elven; author of...

I’m talking to Vijay Khurana about his extremely tense and impressive novel THE PASSENGER SEAT (Peninsula) on Thursday 22 May at @burleyfisher.bsky.social. It’s the London launch. Free tickets!
burleyfisherbooks.com/products/lau...

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Janet Frame’s writing is often compared to Faulkner’s, and her family history reads like a Southern Gothic novel. Yet Frame can be an extraordinarily cheerful, funny writer. Language was a source of continual revelation.’

@lucieelven.bsky.social on the novelist: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Janet Frame found herself stuck in a psychiatric system that took her feeling for language as evidence of madness. When she compared herself to Pierre in “War and Peace”, her doctors thought she was describing a schizophrenic delusion.’

@lucieelven.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

As a gift, she bought him silkworms, which they kept in a shoebox. Frame picked mulberry leaves for the worms to eat and ‘in the silence of the night as I lay in bed I heard a sound like the turning of tiny pages in a tiny library ... the sound of steady chewing and chomping.’

Felix's Studio Some paintings I love

I love this essay from Rachel Connolly about her friendship with the painter Felix Higham

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

Wouldn’t you like to be normal? www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

#booksky for #womenwriters 📚💙

A beautiful, wondrous & deeply thoughtful essay about Janet Frame, her key works and life; she was one of the most remarkable, accomplished memoirists (Angel at My Table), novelists, & story writers of the 20th century. By Lucie Elven, novelist.

archive.is/W65Zp

Thank you!

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Janet Frame’s writing is often compared to Faulkner’s, and her family history reads like a Southern Gothic novel. Yet Frame can be an extraordinarily cheerful, funny writer. Language was a source of continual revelation.’

@lucieelven.bsky.social on the novelist: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Before the second volume of her autobiography was even published, Janet Frame was being called a neglected genius, recommended for the Nobel Prize, awarded a CBE (she would have preferred to be styled Dame Frame, but “that’s my wack”).’

Lucie Elven on the novelist: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Frame’s letters were opened by the doctors, who deemed them “foolish”. A line about gorse smelling of peanut butter was singled out as a sign of her disordered mind and reason enough to prevent contact with the outside world for a time.‘

Lucie Elven on Janet Frame: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Great review this

Janet Frame was just days away from a scheduled lobotomy when her first story collection won a New Zealand national literary award, convincing her doctors to cancel the procedure.

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Frame’s letters were opened by the doctors, who deemed them “foolish”. A line about gorse smelling of peanut butter was singled out as a sign of her disordered mind and reason enough to prevent contact with the outside world for a time.‘

Lucie Elven on Janet Frame: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Issue 47.08 is now online, featuring:

Alan Hollinghurst on 1950s gay London
Anne Enright @thewrengirl.bsky.social on Helen Garner
Julian Barnes on the collector Albert Barnes
Andrew O’Hagan on hologram concerts
Lucie Elven on Janet Frame
and a cover by Naomi Frears.

Read online at www.lrb.co.uk

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

‘Before the second volume of her autobiography was even published, Janet Frame was being called a neglected genius, recommended for the Nobel Prize, awarded a CBE (she would have preferred to be styled Dame Frame, but “that’s my wack”).’

Lucie Elven on the novelist: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

❤️ Janet Frame

Lucie Elven · Wouldn’t you like to be normal? Janet Frame’s Place There were her nicknames: Nini with the nits at home as a child, Miss Educated in Seacliff psychiatric hospital, Waldo...

Given the republication of The Edge of the Alphabet (@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social), I wrote about the brilliant Janet Frame for @lrb.co.uk.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Thank you! I only just joined...

I started reading this yesterday it's a long read but a good one. So often women's quirks and creativity have been pathologised. A fascinating read about writer Janet Frame below ⬇️