If the first volume charts childhood and fracture, An Angel at My Table is where the consequences arrive in full.

Frame moves through misdiagnosis, institutionalisation, as she re-enters the world—first through writing, then through travel, then through a kind of cautious independence that never quite resolves into ease.

What makes it land isn’t just the material (though it’s heavy), but the way she handles it: precise without being clinical, observant without turning inward into self-mythology. There’s a constant awareness of how easily a life can be misread, redirected, or quietly erased by systems that claim to understand it. It’s a record of survival, but not a triumphant one. More like a careful negotiation with reality, page by page.

Paladin (Grafton Books), later paperback edition (likely late 80s). Originally published 1984. Second volume of Frame’s autobiographical trilogy, between To the Is-Land and The Envoy from Mirror City.