| Front Cover |
Book Details |
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| Author |
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| Genre |
Fiction; New Additions |
| Year |
2002 |
| Form |
Softcover |
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| Plot |
| Writing a South African Gone with the Wind, Durban-born lawyer Schmahmann examines the end of the apartheid era through the eyes of the Divan family in his debut novel. We first meet Danny as a grown man who fled to Boston 20 years ago to elude punishment for an illicit relationship with Santi, daughter of their Zulu servant woman. There, he married artist Tessaba to secure a new life. Events of the past and present intermingle as we learn that Danny's mother, Helga, was an avid antiapartheid activist and sister Bridget did jail time. The story then shifts to Helga, Bridget, Santi, her mother, and back to Danny as Schmahmann reveals the Divans' struggles in their native country. At his mother's urging, Danny returns to South Africa to sneak the family's fortune out of the country, but his true mission is to find Santi and confront the past. Schmahmann has not mastered the technique of writing in different voices as Barbara Kingsolver did in The Poisonwood Bible (LJ 9/1/98), but the way the plot gradually reveals its truths is well done, and the changes in South Africa are effectively described. |
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