KEY POINTS:
THE VOLUPTUOUS DELIGHTS OF PEANUT BUTTER AND JAM
By Lauren Leibenberg
Virago, $34.99
Despite lacking traction at times, Lauren Leibenberg's first novel is an assured debut.
The story focuses on sisters, Nyree and Cia, growing up in the former Rhodesia in the late 1970s, a country on the periphery of a brewing civil war. Proceedings begin innocently with the girls running wild on the family's rundown farm, the property a metaphor for a country falling to pieces.
Their mother is a woman with worries and she is in charge of the farm while the girls' father, a shadowy figure, disappears into the jungle for months at a time, fighting "the terrs".
Despite fine writing and engaging observations, the story doesn't really get going until cousin Ronin arrives, a parentless, brooding boy from boarding school.
A well-observed and moving story.
- Detours, HoS
