For my literary book club this month, I read Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country. While his apparent aversion to quotation marks borders on irritating at best and infuriating at worst, Paton paints a very complete picture of South Africa in the late 40s. The story concerns an older pastor, named Stephen Kumalo, from the country who travels to Johannesburg to find his sister and his son - and what he discovers about his family is quite an eye-opener. When his son is accused of the murder of a white man, Kumalo is forced to take another look at his life, his faith, and his family. Paton also focuses on the victim's father, drawing parallels between each fathers' journey. While it dragged at times, it also relates very well to the time period. Alan Paton's life fascinated me - he was a huge anti-apartheid activist and was very involved in South Africa's political scene. He drew on a lot of his own experiences to write the novel, and the amount of personality he put into the story astounded me. I would definitely recommend it, but be aware it deals with a lot of heavy issues, including apartheid, violence, racial tensions, immorality, urbanization, and Christianity.
Overall: 8 out of 10.
Details:
Turtleback: 316 pages
Publisher: Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media (October 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0606326464
ISBN-13: 978-0606326469
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