It is
a story that is both moving and gripping in the way the best thrillers are
gripping. (Review by Margaret von Klemperer, courtesy of The Witness)
A new novel by Craig Higginson is an event
in the literary world. He is an extraordinary talent, and a writer who can
never be accused of churning out the same book over and over again: each of his
works heads in a new direction.
The
Book of Gifts opens at the Oyster Box Hotel in
Umhlanga Rocks. Eleven year old Julian is there with his divorced mother and
his aunt and uncle, and we are immediately plunged into a complex world of
family dynamics. And then Julian meets fellow guest Clare, three years his
senior, poised, pretty and, in the world of rampant young hormones, eminently
exciting. It makes for a lively and compelling start.
But in the second chapter, we are four
years on, and Julian is lying in a deep coma, having jumped, or fallen, from
the chapel tower at his expensive Johannesburg school. For the reader, it comes
like a punch to the stomach as the beautifully evoked, sunny beach holiday
morphs into urban tragedy.
From then on, Higginson takes us backwards
and forwards in time, into the perspectives of Julian’s mother Emma - a wealthy
and successful sculptor - and Jennifer and Andrew, Emma’s half-sister and her
husband, who is a therapist. And slowly and cleverly the reasons that they are
what they are and how and why they have been plunged into the horror situation
of watching a critically injured child are revealed. It is a story that is both
moving and gripping in the way the best thrillers are gripping.
The dynamics of marriage, of jealousy, of
parental love and of what we both gain and lose in the acts of giving and
receiving are explored in Higginson’s beautifully crafted prose. He makes it
seem effortless – there is no sense that here is a writer striving for effect
but those effects are brilliantly achieved nonetheless.
The characters are not cardboard cut-outs,
but deeply realised, flawed human beings. You may not always like them, but by
the end of this excellent and powerful novel, you will care about them, and
their situation and problems will stay with you.
The
Book of Gifts is published by Picador Africa - Margaret
von Klemperer
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