Source: Amazon
Date: August 28, 2009

This is a memorable and highly assured debut novel. In a crowded market of first novels this one stands out both for its unusual setting - Zimbabwe in the years following independence in 1980 - and for its sure handling, a keenly observed story by a writer who clearly knows the world she describes and who is obviously passionate about all her characters.

Lindiwe and Ian are the protagonists, neighbouring teenagers who inhabit very different worlds, she a black Zimbabwean, he a 'Rhodie' with the attitudes of a ruling elite. A terrible event brings them to each other's attention, and through the years of post white-minority rule their relationship develops from immature curiosity to - well you'll just have to read it to find out exactly what. Suffice to say each has a profound effect on the other, as their paths cross while their country goes through increasingly troubled times.

This is described as a love story in promotion and it's certainly that. However I felt it was so much more and that simple description didn't really cover the complexity of the situation. It's love, but love in a world undergoing wider turmoil as the Mugabe government, widely approved as a model of African democracy, descends into a regime of paranoia and fear. The political situation touches the worlds of these characters but it's not central and at its heart this is certainly a novel about people and not politics.

It's to the author's great credit that she breathes life into her characters, with even comparatively minor figures fully rounded and believable. Lindiwe's family are convincingly drawn, with subtlety and at times surprising detail. For example at a distance of thousands of miles and almost three decades it seemed astonishing to me that teenage girls were pinning posters of Duran Duran on their walls in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia just as in Europe and maybe the USA, but in fact they were. The mix of values, of clashing cultures, the search for personal happiness in a new nation racked by corruption, racism and the 'slim disease', all these pervade 'The Boy Next Door' and lift it well above other books you'll see described as 'love stories'.

Highly recommended.