Megan Merton is a retired teacher living quietly in a secluded street – Serpent Crescent – in the backwater town of Qonda. She has lived in the same house for most of her life, seemingly insignificant and harmless.
Only she isn’t. In the memoir she writes - and which is the main part of Vivian de Klerk’s novel - she reveals herself as a snooping sociopath with a good many horrible deeds to her name. She justifies them, at least to herself, by seeing them as being retribution meted out to other unpleasant people. But still...
In fact, Megan is so unpleasant herself that the squeamish reader may find both her and her story completely unpalatable. That would be a pity – the novel is beautifully written, clever and so full of surprises that it is difficult not to give spoilers when writing about it.
Fortunately, when Megan’s story and voice become just too much to stomach, we also hear from her neighbour, Elizabeth Cardew, a university lecturer in Classics. Elizabeth (though she prefers to be called Dr Cardew), has suffered a stroke and is confined in a gruesome sounding convalescent home, Whispering Pines.
Megan, from not entirely altruistic motives, decides to visit her and slowly the two very unlikely friends begin to develop a relationship. Elizabeth is much more likeable and her story moves beyond the confines of Qonda and the misdeeds of its various inhabitants.
There is plenty of humour in de Klerk’s novel, but it is very dark, and when the central character is so fundamentally unlikeable, it is hard for the reader to relate to the book. It’s not that anyone wants cloying sweetness or goodness, but an unrelieved litany of horrors is a little too much of a bad thing.
Once Elizabeth is introduced, things do look up, but each time the narrative returns to Megan, the pervasive odour of disgust – and of other things for which Megan is responsible – becomes somewhat overpowering. It’s a pity, because the central idea of telling the story from the point of view of a self-confessed sociopath is a clever one and the novel is interestingly structured and very well written.
Vivian de Klerk’s Serpent Crescent is published by Picador Africa ISBN 978-1-77010-749-6 - Margaret von Klemperer
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