Faces in the Water
Istina Mavet narrates her years inside two New Zealand psychiatric hospitals in the 1950s, moving between Cliffhaven and Treecroft as staff escalate her treatment from electroconvulsive therapy toward the threat of lobotomy. The book mirrors Janet Frame's own eight-year hospitalization after a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia, including the lobotomy she was scheduled for and saved from when her debut short-story collection won a national literary prize. Faces in the Water is the second novel in Frame's Mavet trilogy and reads as the closest thing in the canon to a female-narrated, New Zealand counterpart to Cuckoo's Nest, written by an author who lived inside the wards she describes.
What you might want to know about Faces in the Water
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A young woman narrates her years inside 1950s New Zealand psychiatric wards as staff escalate her treatment toward lobotomy in this autofictional cornerstone of ward literature.
Yes. Faces in the Water is fictionalized memoir based on Janet Frame's own years in New Zealand psychiatric hospitals from 1945 to 1953, during which she narrowly escaped a planned lobotomy. The novel's events are documentary.
Faces in the Water was written by Janet Frame and originally published in 1961. Frame is widely considered one of New Zealand's greatest writers; her autobiography An Angel at My Table was adapted into the 1990 Jane Campion film.
Faces in the Water is 224 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Faces in the Water takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
Faces in the Water is a standalone novel by Janet Frame, not part of a series.
Faces in the Water is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.