Two children, descendants of Russian-Jewish immigrants, are living in Johannesburg. Josephine is a plain, thoughtful girl: her older brother Simon has all the markings of a delinquent – or a leader of men. Their father, a lawyer with political ambitions, is at odds with his wife, Freda, who despises South African society and has pretensions to culture. We follow this family through the late nineteen-thirties and into the start of the war years. Josephine becomes ever more aware of the rift between her parents and the gulf between black and white. Simon amazes and appalls with outbreaks of bizarre and terrifying violence. The Europeans of this story – all but Simon, who could seem to personify Africa – have shut themselves up into an apparently safe castle of prejudice and self-deception, while dangerous reality waits unavoidably outside its walls and beyond the frail glass of its windows.
