First published 2011
In 1940s South Africa, a young outsider named John struggles to find his place. At home, he's smothered by his mother's suffocating love. At school, he warily avoids the rough Afrikaner kids. Seeking escape, he flees to Cape Town, then London, to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. But the reality is dispiriting - he toils as a computer programmer, haunted by loneliness and failure to write. Decades later, an English biographer digs into the reclusive author's past, uncovering an awkward man still living with his father, dogged by rumors of crossed authorities and secret poetry.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, african-literature, coming-of-age, biographical-fiction, south-africa
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: England, South Africa
Period: 20th century, Siglo XX
484 pages · Hardcover · Harvill Secker