Unfeeling is not a problem in this harrowing novel. You'll be feeling quite a bit, thanks--in your nightmares. It's a book I couldn't put down until the last screaming detail and whiplash surprise. It's ridiculously well-written, and such a complete, double-sided vision of Africa it practically sings its passionate love while documenting horrors I hope I can forget someday. For a reader who wants to understand Africa, the real, complex Africa, this book has it all. And that's just one of its pluses--as a first novel, this is a terrifying joy.The narrative technique is that same one Garcia Marquez employs in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. We know the ending. That's the first sentence. Then we begin circling the horror that we know, and finding out more every chapter, but in reverse order, until we find out the beginning wasn't what we thought.
The reader beginning this novel knows a mind-stretching atrocity has happened at Edenfields, the most glorious Dutch farm of them all, huge and prosperous and thriving, in a country that looks and feels a lot like Zimbabwe. In an early scene, the reader knows the eight farm dogs are discovered mutilated and dead and dying. The dogs being put out of their misery is a wrenching scene. A couple chapters later we have a scene in which those same frolicksome, delightful dogs get a good, soapy bath. This reader came unglued.
This is the story of Davey Baker, a good-looking, 16-year-old farmboy who alone survives an attack in which he loses his parents under hellish circumstances that deepen and darken the farther you wade into the tale. Part One sets up what's happened and what he's done. It gets him into the care of Aunt Marsha, one of the book's joys. Part Two is Davey's solitary, brutal journey across country to reclaim his farm--a visionary road trip, and go ahead and hope, but you won't be spared anything. Anything. This is Cormac McCarthy country--expect the worst--it's just much better written than McCarthy and has women characters who ring true. Part Three is the local farmers' night mission of revenge. The value of farming is the one thing these at-risk men have believed in all their lives, and the government has taken their farms and "redistributed" them to rich cronies. It's pure horror story as they go back to the creepy place of death.
Author Holding is a 29-year-old schoolteacher in Harare, Zimbabwe, and I would be fearful for my life if I'd written his brave, beautiful book. He's a fire for us all.--Nick DiMartino