The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club by Lauren Liebenberg (Virago)
Set in 1958 in what was then Krugersdorp and environs, this is the story of a friendship between two boys, Tommy and Chris. It is written with verve and dash and uses boxing and rock ‘n roll as two of the arenas of excellence that preoccupy these white kids growing up between the white miners’ village on Luipaards-vlei and the black miners’ compound, the railway line and the mine dumps.
It addresses the vulnerability of children, especially Chris’s little sister, Cecilia, who ultimately needs to be rescued from a bad situation of abuse. As in her previous novel, The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam, Liebenberg shows a real talent for involving the reader in the emotional world of the young.
But the complexity of her project deserved an editor better versed in South African history. In her introduction Liebenberg acknowledges that the story is based on the memories of others, and cites various works of reference, but the theme of how the boys assert some power and honour is somewhat swamped by a heavily romanticised view of black-white relations on a mine. An example of this is a scene in which the boys are taught to jive in the mine compound.
The book is also historically misleading in places. For example, Doc, the boxing trainer, refers to migrant labourers as coming direct from the Bantustans. Although by 1958 the nationalists had been in power for a decade, the homelands were only just about to be formalised (Bantu Self-Government Act, 1959), and were not commonly called Bantustans until the 1970s.
The book seems to have been edited for non-South Africans, with a hefty glossary to elucidate the author’s excellent rendition of the South African vernacular. But this is not entirely consistent. For instance, paraffin and cool drinks are called kerosene and soda pop. And, sadly, the Afrikaans is often laughable, as in “Julle Engels!” for “You English [people]!” and “kaking” for “kakking”.
The plot takes an interesting turn, but I found the rough and rollicking tone did not ultimately sit well with the serious themes underlying the boxing and jiving.