The reader gets to know Leigh-Anne on a
certain level, only to discover, much later on in the book that a lot of hiding
went on and all is not as it seems. (Review by Fiona de Goede)
To say I was intrigued by the title of this debut novel by Jane van der Riet is putting it mildly – I initially thought I had misread it and it should have been How to Hide inside a Tree. But no, it’s definitely a Three.
Leigh-Anne is an avid list maker. Not just the normal everyday grocery list – everything in her life is itemised and put on her list. This is her coping mechanism and something she relies on as her life is slowly unravelling around her.
Her marriage to her psychiatrist husband Samuel is spiralling out of control, her parenting skills are falling by the wayside and her workplace infatuation with her colleague Omar is seriously impacting on her life. She is comfortably ensconced in her Cape Town Southern suburb home despite the dams running on empty and a gangster running the country.
The list (and there are many!) that probably encapsulates Leigh-Anne’s frame of mind the best is this one:
Things I did when no-one was watching:
1. Ate
and drank
2. Lay
in a stupor on the couch
3. Stared
at the wall.
She invariably has three items on her list – sometimes seven things because it’s ten minus three and there’s an elegance and balance to the number three. She feels she can hide inside a three. And this she does remarkably well. The reader gets to know Leigh-Anne on a certain level, only to discover, much later on in the book that a lot of hiding went on and all is not as it seems.
The relationships Leigh-Anne has with her siblings and her parents are, naturally, complicated. She has an eccentric best friend, Gwendal, and her bizarre antics impact directly on Leigh-Anne’s already mixed-up topsy-turvy world. A recipe for disaster – all the list-making in the world cannot avoid the inevitable. All the chocolate and wine available to her is not enough. Things will come to a head and only once that happens can she leave her hiding place.
Jane van der Riet, a practicing psychotherapist, lives in Cape Town and is a mother to her two children. This is her debut novel. - Fiona de Goede
How To Hide Inside A Three is published by Penguin Random House South Africa. ISBN
978-1-4859-0479-3
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