Dr Abraham’s motivation for this research is to encourage ‘health professionals to consider a diagnosis of autism, rather than suggest purely a mood, psychotic, or personality disorder, in patients presenting with signs similar to Janet Frame’ A correct diagnosis should help them get appropriate support to participate in the community, not be separated from it. She decided on HFA rather than Asperger Syndrome (AS) because of Janet’s own indication that she had early language delay (the only real difference between HFA and AS).However, Janet Frame’s niece who has an adult child with classic autism, has taken exception to this suggestion. She says Sarah is wrong to make such a claim.

This controversy illustrates that the autistic spectrum is wide, growing and hard to define. It shows both the current fascination with autism and the high esteem in which Janet Frame is held. But it also reinforces my own theory of Janet Frame. In the year 2000 I wrote an essay (since lost) as part of my study for a Master of New Zealand Studies about whether Janet Frame had Asperger Syndrome rather than the schizophrenia she was misdiagnosed with in the 1940s. At the time, the fascinating and detailed authorised biography by Michael King had just been published, I had a newly diagnosed teenage son, and I had long been an admirer of the unique and creative way Janet Frame used the written word. For sources, as well as her autobiographical and fictional writings (a distinction often blurred by Janet), the Turnbull Library had an exhibition of her work containing video and audio sources.I discussed the AS theory with Michael King who indicated agreement but advised me not to publicise it at that time. At the Autism NZ conference that year I mentioned it to Tony Attwood. He said many people previously misdiagnosed with schizophrena were actually autistic. But now Janet and Michael are both dead so we cannot get their reaction to this current controversy.

I forget all the indicators of AS I found in the biography and writings but here are a few. As a child she wanted people to keep still while she told stories as she was distracted by movement (indicating the typical AS monochanelling). She was always regarded as ‘different’ and approached her academic and other work in original and unusual ways, and lived much of the time in her own world. She had a very good visual and auditory memory, was very sensitive to light and sound and describes an intense catatonic aural/visual sensory experience by the Clutha River. She tried in vain to soundproof her houses. She was very literal and when asked by a psychiatrist whether she heard voices she answered (of course), Yes. She was very logical and kept on at a job until it was finished. Writing and being a writer were her passion, but she had little interest in her books, sometimes not even keeping copies, once they were published. There are numerous examples of her doing the logical thing not the socially appropriate thing.She had few friends but developed a dependence on the young psychologist John Money to the extent she had suicidal ideation when he cancelled appointments. When he invited others to meet her she quietly turned her back on them until they had left (a logical coping method for something happening out of context). She had a variety of acquaintances who acted almost as her social interpreters, such as Frank Sargeson. She was a keen letter writer but preferred to write with green ink at odd angles across the page. She was an early adopter of IT technology. She hated interviews for their unpredictability and because they required her to converse and interact which made her anxious, rather than write. When she had enough of these dreaded interviews she politely said goodbye and left even if the interviewer hadn’t finished. She had a strong social conscience, and empathy with the state of humanity, but was often naïve about the intentions of others.Trying to cope with the expectations of others was extremely stressful for her. As a new teacher she ran out of her classroom when the inspectors were due and never returned because of the anxiety it caused.

No one uses the written language in quite the same way as Janet does. Temple Grandin talks of various types of autistic abilities: the visual (artists and engineers), the aural (musicians), those with an affinity for numbers (the mathematicians) and those whose special ability is with words (such as writers).

In Janet’s writing there are frequent descriptions which make sense from an Aspie point of view, such as the title: An Envoy from Mirror City. Her children’s book Mona Minim and the Smell of the Sun – another Aspie title – is about an ant finding herself in the wrong place. It also contains endless word plays on the word ant.

Since my initial research in 2000 two more sources have become available. A 2004 documentary called Wrestling with the Angel contains interviews with many of her friends and acquaintances including the last interview with Michael King. Although autism is not mentioned many describe behaviours that are highly suggestive of it.In this documentary Michael King also gives the historical context. He believed eccentric geniuses like Janet did not have a place in conformist mid century New Zealand where ‘normality’ was very circumscribed. When the lobotomy was suggested to her she was reassured that someone who previously had one was now ‘happily selling hats in Dunedin’. This vision of normality was horrifying for Janet who just wanted to be left alone to be a writer.

An exciting resource is her recently published autobiographical novel Towards Another Summer. This was written in 1963 but never published in her lifetime possibly because of the childhood she describes would be regarded today as abusive. But it is the insights into her life and mind which are fascinating. Living in London and with the schizophrenia label revoked she writes, ‘I was a certified lunatic in New Zealand. Go back? I was advised to sell hats for my salvation’. But her character Grace still feels alienated and puzzled by the human world, ‘for so long she felt not-human, yet had been unable to move towards an alternative species…’.So she becomes a migratory bird. It also contains the most brilliant insight into anxiety as she prepares for a weekend visit to the family of a journalist interested in her work (note it is also one sentence – yet another example of her inventiveness).

‘Now journeys were not simple matters for Grace; nothing is simple if your mind is a fetch-and-carry wanderer from sliced perilous outer world to secret safer inner world; if when night comes your thought creeps out like a furred animal concealed in the dark, to find, seize, and kill its food and drag it back to the secret house in the secret world, only to discover that the secret world has disappeared or has so enlarged that it’s a public nightmare; if then strange beasts walk upside down like flies on the ceiling; crimson wings flap, the curtains fly; a sad man wearing a blue waistcoat with green buttons sits in the centre of the room, crying because he has swallowed the mirror and it hurts and he burps in flashes of glass and light; if crakes move and cry; the world is flipped, unrolled down the vast marble stair; a stained threadbare carpet; the hollow silver dancing shoes; hunting-horns…           

It’s no use saying Freud, Freud. People do, you know. Like squeezing a stale sponge.’ (p 13)

(Later she dismisses psychiatrists after meeting a young medical student ‘Harvey would make a good psychiatrist, although his face has not yet that certain expression which betrays the necessary constipation of feeling’) p. 31

Towards Another Summer reveals other common AS traits such as issues with linear time, coped with by being extremely early for appointments and public transport. She also refers to literal interpretation of words, for example being puzzled by the constant instruction in childhood to ‘pay’ attention.This is all very well but some like David Cohen in the Listener (10 November) have questioned the point of posthumous diagnosis. However, I agree with Sarah Abrahamson that there needs to be more understanding of autism by health professionals so people presenting with such traits are properly understood. Linking famous names to AS is one way to do this. It also helps to reframe the autism traits in positive terms when they are linked with famous people. They become special abilities not obsessions or abnormal interests. The special abilities of those on the spectum can be astounding and boundary pushing. We need to have a wider view of what constitutes creativity, humour, empathy, friendships. And accept this might go with a preference for one’s own company or different ways of ‘being’ in the world. And certainly broaden our view about what is ‘normal’.

Janet Frame clearly felt different from other people. She may have welcomed membership of the autism community, had she known about it. She may have: Michael King indicated her fascination with the autism of her grand-niece. There are rumours that she even had an official diagnosis.Whatever the real situation was, there is a powerful message in Janet Frame’s incredible life and writings about understanding, acceptance of diversity and inclusion.