Vivian de Klerk – författare
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114 kr
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As her 21st birthday approaches, Katy Ferreira has not left her bedroom for close on two years. In fact, she has not left her bed – at 360 kilogrammes, she simply can’t.
Characterised by an indomitable spirit, Katy tries to make the best of a bad situation. She does the crossword in the Herald newspaper her mother brings home, consumes the food she craves – biscuits, pies, doughnuts, litres of fizzy drinks – and waits in hope for insulin and a solution to her plight. To pass the time she begins to compile her own crossword in one of the Croxley notebooks that have been unused since she dropped out of school. Within each cryptic clue is a message, an attempt to explain how it feels to be ‘the fat girl’, how taking comfort in sweet things as a grieving and lonely child escalated into a deadly relationship with food and a psychological and physical disease.
The process triggers splintered memories of dark family secrets and hints of culpability. As Katy finds her voice – quirky, macabre, devastatingly astute and viciously funny at times – the notebooks fill up.
Not to Mention is part diary, part memoir, part love-hate letter to the mother who fuelled her daughter’s addiction as steadily as the world ostracised her. The destructive power of shame and society’s harsh judgement of people who are ‘different’ is matched by the immense courage of a young woman who is determined to be heard.
114 kr
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In the small rural town of Qonda, South Africa, the power and water supplies are unreliable, property prices are down, and citizens are slowly suffocating in the acrid smoke from the municipal dump. Recently retired English teacher Megan Merton has lived here all her life, most of it at No. 8 Serpent Crescent. So who better than this self-styled pillar of society to shine a spotlight on the decline and dysfunction, not to mention the dubious activities, past and present, of many of her neighbours. Nefarious deeds and bad behaviour deserve harsh treatment and appropriate retribution, if not consignment to one of Dante’s fiendish nine circles of hell. At least that’s what Megan believes – in fact she’s been taking matters into her own hands, unnoticed, for years. And now she has decided to write it all down, to shake all of the skeletons loose, and rejoice in the inventive punishments she devised and personally delivered to the wicked.
Then her neighbour Elizabeth Cardew, a lecturer in Classical Studies, suffers a stroke and Megan is entrusted with the keys to No. 9. While Elizabeth begins a long recovery at the local care facility, Whispering Pines, Megan relishes the chance to snoop. Curious as to ‘what a stroke victim looks like’, she decides to visit and see for herself.
A bond develops between the two women – one a cold and calculating sociopath, the other a courageous and lonely academic – something that takes both of them by surprise.
Vivian de Klerk’s sharp observations and brilliantly acerbic satirical wit make this multi-layered novel at once horrifying, shocking and poignant – and very, very funny.