South African publishers have recently found many new novels to publish, some of them unpretentious but close to the bone of ordinary lives. And so, perhaps it is not surprising that each of these “family” novels reviewed here touches on death — not in a maudlin way, but as a shaper of our experience that refocuses us on living, calling for review of who we are and where we have come from.
In Maxine Case’s All We Have Left Unsaid (Kwela), Danika’s story begins in a hospital waiting room. Her mother is dying and she reviews her childhood years in which her life was entirely entwined with those of her mother, sister and both grandmothers, while her father hovered on the periphery. She explores the familiar terrain of mother-daughter relationships — the love, obligations, and resentments. With adulthood came the increasing responsibility of caring for her mother, and her death releases Danika from this responsibility with mixed feelings. But she is able to lay aside recriminations, to leave things unsaid.
Readers looking for an intensely romantic love story will find it in Praba Moodley’s second novel, A Scent So Sweet (Kwela). Set in the midst of Indian Hindu family life in Durban, it portrays two young girls, Lalita and Deviki, who grow up together, go to the same teacher of classical Indian dancing, but are on opposite ends of the money spectrum. Deviki is the spoiled wealthy child whose parents sponsor the lessons of the talented, but poor, Lalita.
The novel is hugely enjoyable on a purely sensory level and full of exotic detail, including dance costumes, but some might find its lyricism a little over the top. To counterbalance this, it has a serious, slightly religious, side that touches on questions of karma, duty and evil.
Deviki gets almost everything she wants, including the man Lalita loves, and an unexpected death provides the climax.
Much angrier than these two novels is Helen Brain’s “memoir, not suitable for children”, entitled Here Be Lions (Oshun). It was quite a relief to note that she says this book is “mostly for myself” as it may well have been written as therapy and deals almost exclusively with her relationship with her brilliantly clever, extremely eccentric and emotionally remote parents and her siblings.
The sexual abuse she experienced as a seven year old is the central issue with which she has to come to terms. Interspersed in the “memoir” is a “fairytale”, which is scarily strange and makes unforgiving fun of the Catholic Church. The point is made that people cannot just shrug off such abuse, however entertainingly daft the family might seem, and especially when they neither acknowledge what happened nor apologise.
The death of her father seems to be the starting point of this “letter” to her parents dealing with all this unresolved business, hopefully at last put behind her.
In her new novel, My Father’s Orchids (Umuzi), Rayda Jacobs has once again given us a satifyingly recognisable portrait of life in Cape Town.
Narrated in part by Hüd, a young musician from Athlone, the plot revolves around the death of his father, who reveals their relationship just before he dies. It is peopled by many strong and interesting women, the backbone of the community, however ordinary their lives might seem.
This does not mean that men get short shrift. Jacobs looks at the secrets and misdemeanours of both genders and all generations in an even-handed way.
This warm and wise novel also explores the relations between the Muslim and Christian sections of the coloured community, and some Jewish forebears.