Martin Amis once said that the writer’s life is half ambition and half anxiety. While one part of your brain is jabbering away to the effect that, with proper application, you might be the next Jane Austen, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, a larger part — almost always more tenacious and assertive — is busy insisting that you don’t have it in you to pick up a pen.
In Fiona Melrose’s second novel, which follows the subtle and reflective Midwinter of 2016, this confluence of aspiration and unease can be felt with unusual force. The book takes place over the course of a single day — 6 December 2013 — in Johannesburg, the city in which Melrose was born and in which she still spends much of her time. It tells the story of the inner struggles of a number of characters as they measure out their lives in a metropolis that is awash with injustice and pain, and swaying to the strange currents (the book is full of aquatic imagery) that have been generated by news of the death of Nelson Mandela the previous day.
As talk of his passing ripples across the city, we meet Gin (‘Ginny’) Brandt, an artist in her forties who has returned to Johannesburg from New York to organise a party in honour of the 80th birthday of her irascible mother, Neve; Gin’s sometime lover, Peter; Neve’s black housekeeper, Mercy; another domestic worker, Duduzile, who makes a living in a nearby house; and Duduzile’s brother, September, a homeless hunchback who was once shot during the course of a rally for workers’ rights.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in