Scatterlings
The Immorality Act of 1927 has just been passed, criminalizing interracial relationships and the children born of them, and many South Africans are troubled over how this will affect their families. Abram, a white man from Holland, and his wife, Alisa, a Black woman from the Caribbean, are caught in this legal quagmire and take very different approaches to protect themselves and their two young daughters.
Both Abram and Alisa are outsiders in South Africa, relying on their nanny Gloria from Transvaal, who follows the ways of the ancestors and does her best to keep the family from being haunted while trying to help them feel at home in her country. The tale is simultaneously heartbreaking and soothing, as the villain assemblyman Daniel Ross persists in investigating these rumored law breakers and Abram makes a hard decision best encapsulated by one line about his eldest daughter: “I think it best to keep her loved.”
This is a thoughtful, character-driven book, full of fairy tales, weeping willows, fire, clan histories, and ancestor practices to convey the tragedy of this one family and explore how they might move forward. Manenzhe unearths several themes and topics that will resonate with readers long after they’ve closed the book: empire, belonging, identity, love and hate and how similar they can be, who we belong to versus who we choose, what we owe ourselves, what happens when we die, and what the truth actually is.
