There has been a proliferation of African fiction lately. I’ve read some, most of which was very good. And this one was simply exceptional.
There were times I was thinking it might overwhelm me with the poeticism of its narrative, but it never did. Instead, it overwhelmed me with its beauty, its poignancy – in the best possible way. The way good books can.
In 1927 South Africa passed its Immorality Laws, outlawing relationships between different races. This is something most Americans are probably mainly familiar with through Trevor Noah, who talks about it extensively in his stand-up and autobiography, being a child of such an outlawed union.
This novel is a story of the devastating effect that law had on one family – the Dutch-English white man, his black English wife (originally from the West Indies), and their two biracial daughters.
An imperfect marriage to begin with, fraught with underlying issues of a woman driven to the brink of madness by her inability to find a place to belong in this world and (subsequent or concurrent) depression. But it began in love; a love that managed to sustain itself however imperfectly over many years. A love that became strained, that changed, but never went away.
It’s what makes what happens in the novel all the more tragic.
I can’t discuss the details without giving too much away, but suffice it to say no one gets out unscathed. The brutal arm of an inhumane law bruises everyone in its reach.
It is a great credit to the author to be able to write about such a difficult time with such emotional intelligence and linguistic elegance as to make the experience positively transforming.
This is especially striking in the depiction of Alisa, a woman unmoored, at odds with her heritage, with her ethnicity and nationality, with her past, unable to find her place in the world, wrecked by a devastating conviction that she doesn’t – cannot – belong to the world that hasn’t made a place for her. Those diary entries alone are absolutely gutting. Such stunning character writing.
And so there you have it. One ugly law – one beautiful book. A relatively short but a powerhose of a read. Literary historical fiction at its best. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.