Home Remedies by Diane Awerbuck
(Umuzi, R220)
Just glancing at the synopsis of the author’s latest book, it seems an intriguing, if complicated, story.
Joanna Renfield works at Fish Hoek Valley Museum of Natural History, where she becomes embroiled in the case of the 1 000-year-old skeleton of someone who has become known as the Fish Hoek Man, in some way linked to Saartjie Baartman.
She has a prickly boss who’s a Struggle veteran, and there’s also her home life and, even more importantly, the fact that she has just had her first child.
But, as with her first book, Gardening at Night, which won the Commonwealth Best First Book Award for Africa and the Caribbean, Awerbuck again shows her incredible grasp of the small details in the way she navigates the inner worlds of people and their daily struggles.
She had me in stitches with: “Women didn’t lose their trick of looking at their partners from the outside. It was men who were bereaved of the knack of attention.”
Two sentences that would make the book worthwhile reading simply because the observation is so astutely funny as well as poignant in her word choice, which says everything about something that sounds so commonplace.
It’s not that men lose the ability, they are “bereft”.
It’s a quirky mind at work and someone who listens to the way the souls of the characters speak which makes the reading so gripping. It’s also drenched in the place it comes from, not only because of the scenario that includes a Struggle veteran and Baartman, for example, but also her contemporary references, sometimes quite obscure in the real world, but that’s fun. How often do we read about something in international novels with no clue what they’re talking about?
We’re at least learning stuff that’s local or picking up on the references because of our particular interests. Even if you don’t know who Finuala Dowling or Ingrid de Kock are, it’s a chance to check them out as she points the way. This is her world and while telling her story she encourages readers to wander off in other directions.
Awerbuck draws you in, limb by limb.
What feels like a specific story turns into something quite different and extraordinary. She makes you giggle and sometimes gag as her characters are put through the wringer of life in a way that’s often uncomfortable, sometimes harrowing, and yet real.
This is a dark fairy tale, but it’s real, and the central character grabs hold of your heart in a way that’s quite tough to see her go.
This is a writer who doesn’t churn them out, but when she publishes, it’s worth paying attention. – Diane de Beer