The Child

R335.00

After a mental breakdown costs him his job in New York, a young man returns to Cape Town.  He and his husband want to rebuild their lives and start a family by adopting a child, but the application forces him to confront his own past. As his life becomes enmeshed with that of his house cleaner and her toddler, his marriage begins to unravel and violence threatens to upend their new beginning. Can he help them while finding a path to healing?

In stock

The Child

After suffering a mental breakdown and losing his job at a New York advertising agency, a young man returns to Cape Town with his husband, Adrian. It’s 2018 and Cape Town is about to run out of water. This isn’t the homecoming they dreamed of, but the couple is determined to hold on to hope.

They are going to start a family by adopting a child. Someone to love, as the world around them falls apart. Maybe even a chance to atone for the sins of this country. But as the adoption gets underway, the narrator is forced to confront the childhood spectres he has spent a lifetime avoiding. While his marriage and sense of self begin to unravel, his life becomes increasingly enmeshed with that of their bubbly and outspoken domestic worker, Sibs, and her quiet young daughter, Buhle. And the more he tries to fix things, the worse they get.

Lies, violence and trauma endanger their hopes of a new beginning. And in the chaos of it all, he has to find his way back to Adrian, and to himself.

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