SOURCE: A review of A State of Siege, in Best Sellers, Vol. 26, No. 8, July 15, 1966, pp. 149-50.

In the review below, Anderson praises Frame's A State of Siege, considering it "a truly singular reading experience."

The truly singular reading experience does not present itself very frequently in modern fiction. Janet Frame's latest novel, A State of Siege, affords just such a rare privilege. The book allows the reader a remarkably intimate intrusion into the subtly tragic life of Malfred Signal, retired art teacher whose entire being had been directed toward two things: teaching young girls how to draw and nursing a dying mother who "stayed so long that her role had become fictional."

The mother is dead and Malfred is left with that paradoxical bereaved elation known only to those suddenly released from a dying aged parent who had forced them by illness and circumstance to sacrifice a lifetime...