by Penny Lorimer (Struik)
This first novel by South African Penny Lorimer is a great first book. The story leads the reader from modern-day life in the city back to the rural area in the Eastern Cape where a young journalist is sent to help a family relative.
Journalist Nix Mniki finds herself reluctantly going back to the rural school and area where her mother’s family live.
She is driven by a sense of obligation but deep inside she is also on a quest to find out why she and her mother are estranged from the rest of the family. Initially I wondered if the author was really in touch with the thoughts of a so-called “coconut” – a black person who has lived in a privileged white home for most of her life – but I found myself enjoying the character and her immersion in the township and her quest for answers made the character more authentic.
It is a crime thriller but lacks the brutal gore that so many thrillers indulge in. The book offers a look at transition in the modern-day South Africa, as families try to cope with the challenges.
The woman she has resented for most of her childhood – an educated daughter of a friend – has gone missing, and Mniki is sent to find answers but she also realises that her own resentment of the missing woman stems from her own insecurity.
The woman’s disappearance leads Mniki to connect with her real family and also to experience the jealousy and resistance to change. Children desperate for education, find themselves in a no-man’s land where education is really a political hot potato.
This book was thoroughly enjoyable and I look forward to a future book from this talented writer.