Published by Vintage, part of Vintage Publishing
Format: Paperback
£7.99
Author:
Jacques Strauss
Format: Paperback
EAN: 9780099555070
£7.99
Available for dispatch within 1-2 working days
EAN: 9780099555070
Published: 3 May 2012
It's 1989, and in the dying years of the Apartheid regime, eleven-year-old Jack Viljee considers life to be simple. He has firm views on race (complex), politics (straightforward), poofdas (inoffensive), God (dangerous) and sex (bewildering). The son of an Afrikaans father and an English mother, wedged between a strident older and a favoured younger sister, Jack allies himself with the family's beloved maid, Susie.
But the Viljee household has been upset by the arrival of Percy, Susie's fifteen-year-old son. Percy - young, bored and full of rage - makes everything awkward and embarassing for Jack. After one particularly humiliating event, Jack betrays Susie. The world, it turns out, is not so simple.
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Very, very funny... It is an utter delight, astute and knowing. Wonderful writing
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Strauss writes with poise and comic timing. His prose is formal and correct; he establishes a tone of laconic regret yet sustains a striking lightness of touch particularly in passages of dialogue...It is, above all, rich in symbols and subtexts
- Irish Times
Jacques Strauss is a 33 year old South African. He studied philosophy at university, obsessed over Derrida and now writes reams of corporate copy for a London firm.
