It is a measure of Brink's genius that this compulsively readable novel seems so straightforward, at least at first, when one is deeply engrossed in the twists and turns of the main characters' changing relationship. Primarily a love story, it chronicles the complex, sometimes masochistic, interaction between Ruben Olivier, a lonely former librarian in his sixties, and Tessa Butler, an attractive free spirit, almost thirty, whom he has taken into his home and who claims to have deep feelings for him. But while Tessa enlivens his days with her attentions and conversations, she also toys with him, flaunting her numerous relationships with other men at night. As Tessa settles in, Ruben finds his once-orderly and peaceful world shattered, the memories with which he has consoled himself after his wife's death destroyed, and his view of himself and the world permanently changed.
The book is deceptively many-layered, for while Brink is exploring rights and desires in the relationship of Ruben and Tessa, he is also simultaneously exploring rights and desires in a political sense. In the newly independent South Africa, the formerly oppressed black majority is now in power and asserting itself. In the confusion of the power transfer, many young men, apparently feeling that "might makes right," have formed marauding gangs, attacking, raping, killing, and essentially doing whatever they desire, their only motivation being revenge for past injustices. No one is safe, and Ruben and Tessa, who had hitherto ignored the danger even when it struck close to home, find that they are not immune as they face a defining moment of terror.
The atmosphere of the novel is dark, the mood of violence is palpable, and a sense of foreboding lies heavily over all. The relationship of Ruben and Tessa is unsettling, strange, perhaps even clinically sick, but it is powerfully seductive in a Nabokovian way. The ghost of a slave, Antje of Bengal, 300-years-old, walks the house, haunts the inhabitants, and keeps them and the reader constantly on edge. Throughout the action, Brink's language is so fluid, his first-person narrative so smooth, and his sense of timing so keen that his style achieves an elegance few others could achieve, given the sometimes bizarre subject matter. This is a thematically complex tale of many interconnected relationships, and it's fascinating. Mary Whipple
