by Damon Galgut
First published 2005
A minister drives through the empty landscape of rural South Africa, heading toward his new congregation in an isolated village. On a desolate stretch of road, he stops for a hitchhiker. The passenger seems ordinary enough at first, but the minister gradually realizes he has picked up a fugitive running from the law. When the minister confronts his passenger at an abandoned quarry, the encounter turns violent and deadly. The fugitive now faces a new threat as the local police chief begins hunting him. The two men engage in a dangerous game of pursuit and evasion across the harsh countryside. Galgut strips away pretense to reveal how quickly civilization crumbles when survival is at stake. This becomes a raw struggle over the most basic human desire: the need to remain free.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, african-literature, crime
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, thought-provoking
Tropes: cat-and-mouse, fugitive, isolation
Setting: South Africa
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
208 pages · Hardcover · McClelland & Stewart
Content warnings: violence