Living in the Maniototo

Welcome to the comical, ironical, and multiple worlds of one Violet Pansy Proudlock (a ventriloquist), who is also known as Alice Thumb (a gossip and secret sharer of limited imaginings) and, at other times, as Mavis Furness Barnwell Halleton (a writer twice married).

Through it all, Violet-Alice-Mavis chooses to be the entertainer, to make us laugh and cry, to be the ventriloquist who dares to enter the speech of others and expose them.

A comic, ironic and multi-layered journey through the world of a narrator who triples as a ventriloquist, gossip and writer.

Welcome to the comical, ironical, and multiple worlds of one Violet Pansy Proudlock (a ventriloquist), who is also known as Alice Thumb (a gossip and secret sharer of limited imaginings) and, at other times, as Mavis Furness Barnwell Halleton (a writer twice married).

Recipient of the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989, Janet Frame has long been admired for her startlingly original prose and formidable imagination. A native of New Zealand, she is the author of eleven novels, four collections of stories, a volume of poetry, a children's book, and her heartfelt and courageous autobiography, all published by George Braziller.