Owls Do Cry is the story of the Withers family: Francie, soon to leave school to
start work at the woollen mills; Toby, whose days are marred by the velvet cloa
k of epilepsy; Chicks, the baby of the family; and Daphne, whose rich, poetic im
agination condemns her to a life in institutions. 'Janet Frame's first full-leng
th work of fiction, Owls Do Cry, is an exhilarating and dazzling prelude to her
long and successful career. She was to write in several modes, publishing poems,
short stories, fables and volumes of autobiography, as well as other novels of
varied degrees of formal complexity, but Owls Do Cry remains unique in her oeuvr
e.
