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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2006, 304 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2006, 304 pages
In this beautiful first novel set in South Africa, Lisa Fugard paints a haunting portrait of a family careering toward disaster, moving with extraordinary agility between intimate and revelatory domestic scenes and the fiercely challenging land.
Ten years after leaving South Africa, the country of her birth and the
place where her mother died, Eva van Rensburg returns to her dying father, a
violent man whose terrible secret Eva has kept since she was a child.
In this beautiful first novel, Lisa Fugard paints a haunting portrait of a
family careering toward disaster. She vividly describes the isolation of Eva's
rebellious and lonely English mother; the desperation of her Afrikaner father as
drought destroys his farm; the conflicts among the black farm-workers as the
younger generation questions the loyalty and subservience of their elders; and
the dangerous silence of a young girl who witnesses too much.
Like Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee, Fugard has written a profoundly
moving family drama, subtly set against the backdrop of a country in turmoil.
She moves with extraordinary agility between intimate and revelatory domestic
scenes and the fiercely challenging land. This is a powerful story from a
stunning new writer.
Chapter One
September 1997
Eva pressed her forehead to the window and watched the ruffle of waves
rimming the coastline recede from view as the plane nosed its way toward
Johannesburg. The dirt roads were visible, clawed into a land pitted and scarred
by drought. She knew the hell of driving them, how dusty and worn she'd feel
after jolting along one, nothing to look at for hour upon hour but rocks and
thorn trees. Maybe, if she was lucky, a jackal, a snake. Africa lay stretched
beneath her like the ravaged hide of some ancient beast, and something fierce
shuddered inside her, a love that startled her and set off another round of
tears.
The girls sitting behind her were talking to one another. Sixteen hours into
the flight and she still couldn't identify the language, definitely not Xhosa,
she hadn't heard any of the characteristic clicks, and not Sotho because she
would surely have recognized the rhythms if not any of the words. At least they
...
Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
...The landscape and characters ring true, the tone and the dialogue are just right. It is books like this -- books that shake the dust out of our heads and hearts -- that allow us all to understand our past slightly better and walk forward more confidently. It should be read the way it was written -- with compassion and an open mind.About the author: Lisa Fugard was born in South Africa, the daughter of acclaimed playwright
Athol Fugard. She came to the United States in 1980 to pursue her acting career.
She has written many articles for The New York Times
travel section and this is her first novel. She lives in the desert of Southern
California.
About the excerpt: There are a number of words in the excerpt which can
be understood in the context of the book, but still my interest was piqued to
find out exactly what they meant. Here are the results of my research!
Alldays: The town where Lisa last saw her father is a small town in the
Limpopo province,
the northernmost province in South Africa.
Dominee: pastor.
Rinkhal: a cobra indigenous to South...
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