# Owls Do Cry

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/janet-frame/owls-do-cry/9780349006673

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![Owls Do Cry](https://quivercdn.com/covers/virago/janet-frame/owls-do-cry_978-03-4900-667-3.jpg?v=2026-04-29%2002%3A07%3A05)

- Book: [Owls Do Cry](https://www.bookquiver.com/janet-frame/owls-do-cry) ([Owls Do Cry.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/janet-frame/owls-do-cry.md))
- Authors: [Janet Frame](https://www.bookquiver.com/janet-frame)
- Publisher: virago
- ISBN: 978-03-4900-667-3
- Published: 2016-01-14
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

'Owls Do Cry remains innovative and relevant' GUARDIAN 'Janet Frame was a unique and troubled soul whose luminous words are the more precious' HILARY MANTEL 'Her dark, eloquent song captured my heart ' JANE CAMPION 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 cloak of epilepsy; Chicks, the baby of the family; and Daphne, whose rich, poetic imagination condemns her to a life in institutions. It is one of the classics of New Zealand literature and has remained in print continuously for fifty years. A fiftieth anniversary edition was published in 2007. Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame's first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography: 'Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters' Regarded by many as one of the best New Zealand novels published, Owls Do Cry forms a loose trilogy with her two subsequent novels, Faces in the Water and The Edge of the Alphabet.