At its core a coming-of-age story, set in the 1930s Johannesburg Jewish neighborhood of Doornfontein. Isaac Helger and his family left Lithuania shortly after WWI and settled with their fellow Lithuanian-Jewish emigres. His mother, disfigured and driven, carries a dark secret with her, but Isaac lives a raucous adolescence under the South African sun. As Europe moves toward war anti-Semitism is on the rise in South Africa and tilts the course of Isaac's life.
The setting makes this an interesting read, although the author's rendering of local Afrikaans speech patterns interwoven with Yiddish is often difficult to follow. Bonert may have tried to weave a few too many threads in here; he includes issues surrounding the 'Native Question' but then deals with it in a perfunctory, unsatisfying manner. Still, this is a rapid and engrossing read which holds the reader's attention.
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