Publisher's Synopsis
This autobiographical novel opens in fiery-hot grey 1944 London - a city still staggering after the Blitz and now subjected to attacks from Hitler's VI "doodlebugs". Forced to flee to the precarious seaside world of Brighton, two young brothers and their mother Millie find themselves uprooted and adrift. Lost in a strange night-world where winos and American GIs mingle in bars with wild women unleashed by the anarchy of war, the brothers face violence, raw sexuality and profound loneliness, finding uncertain refuge in dark movie houses and the fantasy universe of cinema. With the death of their father "Our Jack" in the remote jungle of the disastrous Malayan Campaign, the family must attempt a reconstruction which is sabotaged by a cycle of accident, malice and violence embedded within history's larger wheel. When Millie marries a South African soldier, Max, the family sails on board the Windsor Castle to a hopeful new life in the Union of South Africa. Yet as white Afrikaner-English tensions reach boiling-point in the long shadow of the Boer War, and the 1948 elections instate the National Party on a road to Apartheid, the brothers are sucked into a daily battle in the violent Far West Rand mining towns where the family struggles to build a life. As gold miner Max spirals into Brandy-soaked alcoholism and mental illness, the family endures a deadly trial which mirrors the everyday regime of racial violence emerging as a public ethic. Following a daring 'escape' back to England, the enigmatic bond of love between Max and Millie ultimately causes the wheel to turn again as the family makes an irreversible return to South Africa. The boys eventually come of age in dead-end hotels amidst murder and cruelty, as well as the heroism and courage of ordinary people in a multiverse of colourful cultures, and survive through laughter. Against the background of a slowly changing national mass consciousness, the ghosts of violence produce an ultimate family confrontation where survival and dignity stand at stake. This infernal machine of a novel fascinatingly details West Rand South Africa in the post-War period, filled with characters inhabiting worlds made of music, magic and dreams, as well as suffering and overcoming.
