Life in the Gray
household, based in a small diamond-mining village of Premier Mine, near
Pretoria in the Transvaal Highveld, is described in detail and it makes for an
interesting perspective of life of an ordinary working class family soon after
the war. (Review by Fiona de Goede)
As soon as I started reading this offering by Neville
Herrington, I knew that this was not entirely going to be my cup of tea. Despite
this foreboding, I read the book with an open mind, waiting to become a convert
and fall in love with this time in South African history.
Elsie’s brother Willie and her shell-shocked boyfriend
Hilary, return from fighting in German East Africa during World War I. Willie,
who is unemployed, gets involved in illicit diamond smuggling and faces dire
consequences as a result of this. Hilary battles with demons of his own and
cannot face life in the real world again.
Life in the Gray household, based in a small diamond-mining
village of Premier Mine, near Pretoria in the Transvaal Highveld, is described
in detail and it makes for an interesting perspective of life of an ordinary
working class family soon after the war.
Elsie decides to train as a nurse and is posted to a field
hospital in Belgium. Here she comes face to face with war in all its raw horror
and terrible waste of human life. She is also eager to learn more about
universal suffrage and attends meetings to hear more about this movement.
One of the men that Elsie nurses back to recovery, Eddie,
proposes to Elsie and they decide to return to South Africa to start their
married life together. Eddie is involved with the miners’ strike in 1922 and
Elsie is widowed during this revolt. It is shortly after this event that Elsie
opens a home for abused women and single pregnant mothers.
I found the style of writing very clipped and the dialogue
stilted and unnatural. Furthermore, despite the title of the book, only the
last 50 pages or so of a 160-page book actually deal with Elsie. The bulk of
the book focuses on Willie and his life. Various typos which were missed in the
editing process slipped through. However, all of that aside, the use of present
tense throughout the telling of this tale is probably what I found the most
disconcerting. Perhaps readers of previous works by the writer will be more
accustomed to this writing style.
Elsie costs R150 (the
price excludes postage). ISBN: 978-0-620-85557-0 All books can be ordered from
Exclusive Books or the Tekweni website www.tekweni.co.za or email: tekweni@iafrica.com
- Fiona de Goede
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