The Child

De: Alistair Mackay

Narrado por: Alistair Mackay

After a mental breakdown costs him his job in New York, a young man returns to Cape Town with his husband, Adrian. It’s 2018. The drought is severe, and their homecoming is tinged with failure and reverse culture shock. But there is hope, too. They want to start a family by adopting a child.

As the adoption gets underway, the narrator is forced to confront events from his own childhood he would rather avoid, and question whether he is capable of love and fatherhood. His life becomes increasingly enmeshed with that of his house cleaner, Sibs, and her toddler, Buhle. His marriage begins to unravel and violence threatens to upend their new beginning. Can he help those he cares about while finding his own path to healing?

©2024 Alistair Mackay (P)2024 Kwela

Inner exploration confronts broken society

This was a great listen! There’s always something special about hearing a book read by the author, but this novel - where the narrator is so honest about his emotions and so introspective about his wrestles with where they come from - really glows with the author's reading. And as a bonus, the South African accent makes all the Cape Town locations that much more authentic.

I have read and enjoyed the book previously in its printed form. It is a great exploration of the inner struggles of a privileged white South African trying to do the right things but taking several wrong-turns along the way. It gives a fascinating insight to the inner thoughts that motivate and justify choices that from the outside seem like self-sabotage. At the same time the book weaves in telling political insights and cultural vignettes about life in present-day South Africa, with all its complexities and contradictions. A great mix of the intensely personal, combined with a portrait of the broader society in which it is set.