BLOOMER: REVIEW

 

The novel is lively and often funny but as it progresses, the tone gets a little darker as serious issues are tackled, albeit with a light touch. Review by Margaret von Klemperer, Courtesy of The Witness

The elderly are one of the marginalised groups in society, all too often considered to be old, boring, of no consequence and anyway on the way out. So all kudos to Anne Schlebusch who, like the characters of her novel, is a septuagenarian and is giving the elderly a voice.

Bravely, she has set Bloomer during the Covid pandemic, the time of lockdowns, masks and very little social interaction; something many of us would prefer to forget and that authors and publishers are shying away from, fearing it will alienate readers.

 Schlebusch’s main characters are a group of five friends of the Baby Boomer generation, living in a retirement complex in Cape Town. They are a lively bunch – Maggie who is the main character and an artist; Dolphus, a retired history professor; Corinne, a radio and television gardening presenter; Phil, a handyman whose wife is receiving dementia care and Nobantu who is a retired professor of sociology.

Once lockdown starts, they do what we all did – tidy up, learn to use Zoom and try to exercise without going anywhere.

Maggie goes back to her old diaries for 2002, a way for the author to give her a backstory which will play a part in the novel as it progresses. The group of friends decide they will have to take their lives and futures into their own hands, confronting the management of their complex and insisting that the elderly must have a voice, and a future. With help of children and grandchildren, they set up a social media presence, with some very surprising (and to be honest, improbable) results. And romance is in the air for some of the characters, with varied outcomes.

The novel is lively and often funny but as it progresses, the tone gets a little darker as serious issues are tackled, albeit with a light touch. There is a fine line between being amusing at someone’s expense and being patronising, and Schlebusch generally manages not to cross it. I have to admit that the staccato and sometimes cutesy tone of the writing began to grate on me by the end of the book, but overall Schlebusch is to be congratulated on giving a voice to an often-overlooked group of people. - Margaret von Klemperer

Anne Schlebusch’s Bloomer is published by Modjaji Books. ISBN 978-1-928433-49-1