THE BOOK FAIR
READ AND FULFILL YOUR LIFE
Carolyn Slaughter
Heart of
the River
Author: Carolyn Slaughter
Published: 1982
Genre: Novel
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 302
Review:
The novel portrays a lonely woman who after suffering failed relationships, returns to Africa from England. Divorced for eleven years, Constance returns to her home where she intends to pull her life together and possibly teach again as a VSO (Volunteer Service Overseas) teacher.
Constance discusses her past relationships with her aunt and tells her about the only man she ever really loved. By coincidence, a new man comes into her life, a man different from all others with whom Constance falls in love. Constance must then decide if she returns to England to be with her son, or stay in Africa with the man of her dreams.
A portrayal of a woman in search of importance and value in her life. Dialogue aside, the book is primarily written in Constance’s voice, with snippets from other character’s viewpoints.
The Innocents
Author: Carolyn Slaughter
Published: 1986
Genre: Novel
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 277
Review:
Zelda, Hannah and Ruth live on a rich farm in the South African veld. The farm belongs to Zelda de Valera. The de Valera’s amassed wealth buying many tracts of land.
Hannah, born of mixed race, her father white and her mother Xhosa, works the farm with Zelda. When Hannah was young, she was taken in by the twins, Zelda and Dawie who cajoled their mother to allow her to stay.
When a small girl, Ruth, the troubled child, questions what happened to her parents and cannot accept the story told, that her parents died in a car crash. Hannah, unable to bear Zelda’s insensitivity to the child, deals with Ruth’s rage, her temper tantrums, her unruliness. At sixteen, Ruth proves as unruly as ever.
As racial strife mounts, so does the tension between the three women on the farm. Hannah feels she has no choice but to involve Dawie, now an attorney in Cape Town, who left the tensions and jealousies of the farm years before.
A sensitive story of love and jealousy, and passionate characters caught in the traps of human emotion and the racial structure of the times.