The Carpathians by Janet Frame

In The Carpathians we are presented with a topsy-turvy world. The protagonist, Mattina Brecon, is a wealthy New Yorker whose husband, Jake, is a novelist struggling to follow up the success of his smash-hit debut. Mattina, upon hearing the legend of the Memory Flower, decides to fly to New Zealand to visit a rural town, Puamahara, where the magical flower, said to release the memories of the land, linking them with the future, is rumoured to grow. Once there, Mattina rents a house on Kowhai Street, where, posing as a novelist, she sets out to record the lives of her new antipodean neighbours. As she discovers, however, the locals are also ‘impostors’, brought into existence by the memory of another time and place. Eventually, the town slowly begins to resemble a cemetery, silent and dead still. This 1988 Century Hutchinson Hardback is in very good condition. DJ: Writing in pen from previous owner on page one, dated 1988.

ISBN: 9781869410230 SKU: 1555776 This image is of the actual book.

Location: NZ Fiction