Affairs From Home

David — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:23:17 GMT

Bree O’ Mara is the winner of the inaugural Citizen newspaper Book Prize, and Home Affairs is her resultant debut novel.

The most refreshing thing about this book is that it is far from a dull, dry first novel affair. Quite the contrary! Many have been comparing it to Tom Sharpe’s legendary satirical work on South Africa. If I have one criticism of this very funny book it might be precisely this: at time it is a little TOO Tom Sharpe and not enough Bree O’Mara.

That nit picking aside, this is a hilarious examination of small town South Africa and the odd preconceptions we all seem to harbour about our place in the new world we live in. There is no cow so sacred as not to be slaughtered and O’Mara goes about her work with glee.

Her characters are excellent comedic line-drawings: not so deep as to detract from their function but neither so sketchy as to reduce our empathy for them. This works to perfection in the world of weird opposites and contradictions that is her small town of Hillman.

The usual suspects of relations between black and white residents, English and Afrikaans whites, servants and bosses are all explored and poked at thoroughly. No one group come out looking very good, or more battered than the other. Well, except maybe the English, and no-one cares about them anyway, so we?

Without giving too much away, Home Affairs concerns itself with the changes that over take an otherwise peaceful Drakensburg town when a change of mayor is mooted, and the entire name-changing debate arrives in town in force. Needless to say, everyone suddenly has a stake and an opinion where before there were none, with often hilariously catastrophic results.

But the pieces are all neatly tied up by the end of the book. (Perhaps too neatly for my maverick liking) and life in Hillman threatens to go on much as before. As a comedy the book undoubtedly succeeds and I hope O’ Mara goes on to be bolder and ruder and really express her own voice in the threatened follow on books. AS a political satire, Home Affairs may be less successful, but I suspect that this may be rectified in these still-to-come follow-ons.

Definitely worth a read for those in need of a humorous take on some key South African issues.

The Chiz : Home Affairs

Affairs From Home