Jacques Strauss Boeken

In 1976, in rural South Africa, a family massacre takes place; a bloodbath whose only witness is the family's black maid. Hendrik Deyer is the principal of a state-run school camp who lives nearby with his wife, Petronella and their two sons, Werner and Marius. As Hendrik becomes obsessed with uncovering what happened, his wife worries about her neighbours, a poor white family whose malign influence on her son Werner is - she believes - making his behaviour inexplicably strange and hostile. One night another tragedy changes each of their lives, irrevocably. Two decades later, Werner is living with his mother and invalid father in a small Pretoria flat. South Africa is a changed place. Werner holds a tedious job in the administration department of the local university and dreams of owning his own gallery. His father is bedridden, hovering on the edge of death, and furious, as he has been for twenty years. As Werner feels his own life slip away, and his thoughts turn to murder as a means to correct the course of all their futures. It is not possible to undo what happened in 1976, but Werner's desperation to change his own his fate will threaten not only his own family but also those still living in the aftermath of what happened all those years ago

Winner of the Commonwealth Regional Prize, Africa For eleven-year-old Jack Viljee, apartheid Johannesburg is a rational and simple place. Whether he’s picking fights with his little sister or fretting over his possibly gay best friend, Jack can always depend upon Susie, his family’s black maid, for a word of sympathy and approval. The Viljee household, in its small way, mimics the politics of South Africa. But Jack’s little world is upset by the arrival of Percy, Susie’s teenaged son. When Percy catches Jack in a shameful moment, Jack discovers that even small acts of revenge can have unimaginable consequences. Subversively smart and unapologetically funny, Jacques Strauss's The Dubious Salvation of Jack V. is a powerful debut from a fearlessly original voice.

Die Unterschiede sind gravierend in diesem Land, in das er als Sohn einer weißen Mittelschichtsfamilie hineinwächst. Jack ist von allem ein bisschen: Halb Engländer, halb Bure, aufgezogen von einer schwarzen Kinderfrau, die bei den Viljees lebt, seit er denken kann. Susie liebt er über alles, auch wenn für sie Handgreiflichkeiten eine Form der Zuneigung sind und sie regelmäßig sagt: »Jack, ich hab dich so gern! Ich hau dich!« Der Haushalt der Viljees wird aufgemischt, als Percy auftaucht, Susies 15-jähriger Sohn. Percy ist gelangweilt, eitel und voller Zorn. Als Percy Jack in einem intimen Moment erwischt, schämt sich Jack so in Grund und Boden, dass er schwört, Rache zu üben. Aber diese Rache hat schwere Konsequenzen. Jack muss lernen, dass die Kluft zwischen Schwarz und Weiß, Arm und Reich, zwischen Schuld und Unschuld noch nicht überwunden ist.