Erica Emdon’s novel does a good job of examining abuse at both a personal and national level in the apartheid state.
JELLY DOG DAYS by Erica Emdon (Penguin)
By the time Jelly Dog Days came into my possession it had already piqued my curiosity, not least because of its enigmatic title with its vaguely pleasant childhood associations. On learning that it was a book about child abuse, however, I embarked on reading it with some trepidation, my initial enthusiasm dampened by its chilly theme.
On many levels, it was nonetheless a surprise. Despite extremely depressing and harrowing subject matter, it unfolds in a remarkably readable and user-friendly style. Through first-person narrative, Terry tells her tale of hardship, maltreatment and sheer struggle. She relays her story in the present tense, as experienced by a young girl growing up from her earliest conscious memories through to adolescence, and Emdon captures the language and mindset of the young Terry in a style that is both plausible and compelling.
The book is poignant, has depth, and conveys with conviction the vagaries of an abusive relationship, quite often characterised by ambivalence. Here, the most reprehensible acts are juxtaposed with expressions of love and tenderness, and in turn Terry feels confused, frightened, repelled, loved and hated. The reader is nonetheless shocked by the emergence of the abuser’s identity as the preamble has invited us to believe, as Terry did, that her abuser is actually one of the few people who has her best interests at heart, and one who is seen as a more hopeful figure, given her mother’s lack of real engagement with her. Indeed, it is at this juncture that one is painfully reminded that the literal definition of “paedophilia” is the love of children, and hence, our deception.
This story vividly portrays a dysfunctional family, of whom the domestic worker is predictably a much exploited but highly conspicuous and integral “member”. Indeed, the open racism of the day is almost parodied at times in a manner that would be ludicrous, were it not so tragic (and, unfortunately, not such a parody!) Although the fictional depiction of apartheid at its prime is a difficult genre, and one that is perhaps more bravely attempted in a post-apartheid era, Emdon does not shrink from the task.
Jelly Dog Days examines the fragmentation of a society based on apartheid and the subsequent corruption of the family unit as a function of such a society, and the anomie that ensues. Further, it is a story about disempowerment, ignorance and denial. This is, for example, depicted by the way in which Terry, a vulnerable child, is sacrificed by those who have been entrusted with her well being, even as the other “responsible” adults to whom she ought to have been able to turn, collude with the abuse by turning a blind eye, and by deliberately not involving themselves, because they too, are indirect victims of a repressive system of governance. Terry, in turn, vacillates between rebellion and despair.
In true testimony to the public-interest lawyer who wrote it, this is a novel that makes a tacit bid for social change, for how can even the most ignorant of readers not be outraged by the multiple iniquities represented in this work and not consider the need for social policy that protects human rights?
Much of this is cunningly conveyed through the role of Sophie — Terry’s “nanny”, the family “maid” and more appositely, probably the closest person she has to a real mother. It is the tale of Sophie and her son and his involvement in the struggle of 1976 that serves as a foil to Terry’s plight in her own family, for it is in Sophie, and not in Terry’s own alcoholic mother, that we see maternal values reign supreme. And it is in the juxtaposition of these two maternal relationships that there occurs an even starker exposé of abuse and the neglect that accompanies it.
Nevertheless, this serious novel, as disquieting as it is unsentimental, could have gone further. I did feel that, having managed to take this reader in its grip, the emotional handbrake was on, and that where I had been gearing up for full throttle, I was left feeling slightly distanced from Terry. It was almost as though I, as reader, could only look on passively in a slightly numbed state and wonder whether my feelings echoed those of Terry as the often helpless and traumatised “observer” of her own terrible plight.
Further, at times the story appears to have been described from the outside in, rather than developed from the inside out, so that the characters sometimes lack emotional cohesion. This pertains to one of the more important figures in the story, Terry’s mother, Lizette, whose character is brittle and inconsistently portrayed.
Emdon has excelled, however, in her almost visceral evocation of the Johannesburg of the 1960s and 1970s — for those of us old enough to reminisce, there is much to which to be drawn, for all its portents of tragedy and doom. A sense of dreadful anticipation pervades the book, both in terms of Terry’s fate and in the mounting political tensions that preceded the 1980s — one of the darkest periods of apartheid history.
Jelly Dog Days is an ambitiously wide-ranging work that deals with many taboos in a bold and compelling way. Emdon is apparently already at work on her next novel and one awaits it expectantly, for there is a feeling that here is a writer who will gather momentum with maturity.