Instead, the book’s central event is the death of Sheila’s 39-year-old sister, Maxine, killed when her husband, Carl, plows their convertible into a lamppost. Whenever softhearted Maxine asked for help leaving her marriage — politely, indirectly, repeatedly — her mother and sister brushed her off. Perhaps their fixation on status guided them, or maybe the entrenched misogyny, white entitlement and inequality of South African culture had entered the communal bloodstream. Sheila, now the septuagenarian author of 14 works of fiction, has grappled with her role as a bystander to her older sister’s death for over 35 years. Maxine marries Carl and bears him six children (“We need more white babies,” a gynecologist urges).

Source: New York Times January 27, 2017 12:00 UTC