Scatterlings: A Novel
A Best New Book from Vanity Fair • The Root Vulture • People • Washington Post • Christian Science Monitor • Los Angeles Times • EssenceA New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Pick! A New Yorker Best Book of the Year!Acclaimed both here and abroad, the most awarded debut title in South Africa is a revealing saga of one multiracial family’s scattered souls in the wake of history—the story of lives tragically upended with the passage of the Immorality Act.“Elegant, mythical, heart-wrenching, and beautiful, Scatterlings conveys the profound impact of racism on one South African family.”—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of The Revisioners
In 1927, South Africa passes the Immorality Act, which prohibits sexual intercourse between “Europeans” (white people) and “natives” (Black people). Those who break the draconian new law face imprisonment. Abram, a white man, and his Black wife, Alisa, have their share of marital problems, but they also have a comfortable life with their two young girls. After the Act is passed, their two children are evidence of their involvement in a union that has been criminalized.Abram is at a loss as to how to protect his young family from the grinding machinery of the law, whose worst discriminations have until now been kept at bay by the family’s economic privilege. And with this, and his hesitation, the couple’s bond is broken. Alisa, who is Jamaican and the descendant of slaves, comes to a heart-breaking conclusion based on her past and collective history—and she commits her own devastating act, one that will reverberate throughout the family’s entire life.
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A Best New Book from Vanity Fair • The Root Vulture • People • Washington Post • Christian Science Monitor • Los Angeles Times • EssenceA New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Pick! A New Yorker Best Book of the Year!Acclaimed both here and abroad, the most awarded debut title in South Africa is a revealing saga of one multiracial family’s scattered souls in the wake of history—the story of lives tragically upended with the passage of the Immorality Act.“Elegant, mythical, heart-wrenching, and beautiful, Scatterlings conveys the profound impact of racism on one South African family.”—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of The Revisioners
In 1927, South Africa passes the Immorality Act, which prohibits sexual intercourse between “Europeans” (white people) and “natives” (Black people). Those who break the draconian new law face imprisonment. Abram, a white man, and his Black wife, Alisa, have their share of marital problems, but they also have a comfortable life with their two young girls. After the Act is passed, their two children are evidence of their involvement in a union that has been criminalized.Abram is at a loss as to how to protect his young family from the grinding machinery of the law, whose worst discriminations have until now been kept at bay by the family’s economic privilege. And with this, and his hesitation, the couple’s bond is broken. Alisa, who is Jamaican and the descendant of slaves, comes to a heart-breaking conclusion based on her past and collective history—and she commits her own devastating act, one that will reverberate throughout the family’s entire life.
