Review: Vivien Horler

The Boy Behind the Curtain, by Tim Winton (Penguin)

Anyone who has read Tim Winton’s recent novel The Shepherd’s Hut knows that he is a phenomenal writer.

He would seem to be best known in his native Australia for his 1991 novel Cloudstreet, but The Shepherd’s Hut (reviewed by The Books Page on October 14 2018) is the first of his books I’ve read, and I thought it was brilliant.

Which is why I bought The Boy Behind the Curtain, a collection of essays, on a recent visit to Australia.

Winton has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice, and has won the Australian Miles Franklin award four times – that award is named after the author of the delightful and quirky novels My Brilliant Career (1901) and My Brilliant Career goes Bung (1946). Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Unnatural Causes – the life and many deaths of Britain’s top forensic pathologist, by Dr Richard Shepherd (Penguin Books)

unnatural causes

Four people were in the vehicle accident which claimed the life of Princess Diana in Paris in 1997, and three of them died.

Paradoxically, according to top British forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd, the princess was the least seriously injured of the four.

The driver, Henri Paul, and the princess’s lover, Dodi al Fayed, were killed instantly. The Al Fayed’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, the only person in the car who was wearing a seatbelt, was seriously injured. But Princess Diana was conscious and speaking when the ambulance arrived, and as a result the paramedics concentrated on Rees-Jones.

But what no one knew was that the princess has sustained a tiny tear in a vein deep in one of her lungs, which slowly began to bleed. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Zephany, by Joanne Jowell (Tafelberg)

How do you cope when you discover, at 17, that you’re not who you thought you were, and nor is anyone else?

One summer day in 2015 Miché Solomon, who was in matric at Zwaanswyk High School in Main Road, Retreat, went to school as usual. Within a couple of hours her entire life, and that of her family, had been turned upside down.

She was informed by her school principal that it was suspected she was Zephany Nurse, the baby who had been stolen from her crib at Groote Schuur Hospital in April 1997. She was told she would have a DNA test to see if this was true, and no, she couldn’t go home. Her mother had been arrested. Her cellphone was taken from her. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

The SABC8, by Foeta Krige (Penguin Books)

I’ve never met Foeta Krige, but I’ve worked with people like him, and I have an idea about the way he operated.

He was an old-school reporter and editor. You covered the news without fear or favour, assembled the facts, spoke to analysts and gave your subject the right of reply.

I cannot imagine what it’s like to be called to a meeting – as Krige was in 2014 – and told it had been decided the SABC would give no further coverage to the EFF. When Krige protested to Jimi Matthews, head of TV news, that this sort of order was reminiscent of the years of apartheid censorship, Matthews exploded: “Don’t you talk to me about apartheid. You people, what did you do to change things?” Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Blood on her Hands – South Africa’s most notorious female killers, by Tanya Farber (Jonathan Ball)

One late afternoon in 1974, when I was 22, I went with my boyfriend to visit his brother Rob in the boarding house where he lived behind St Paul’s Church in Rondebosch.

Rob hadn’t been in the boarding house long, and his initial relationship with his co-residents was bedevilled by the fact that soon after he moved in, someone’s portable radio had been stolen. As he was the newest resident, suspicion fell on him.

Rob, an engineering student, had also been a victim of crime in the boarding house. He had a pistol, which he kept locked in his wardrobe. One day it disappeared.

We hadn’t been in Rob’s room long when a slim young fellow resident called Marlene strolled in. She had shoulder-length hair, lots of eye make-up, and was wearing a Truworths mini-dress. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Day Zero – one city’s response to a record-breaking drought, by Leonie Joubert & Gina Ziervogel (AXA/ Mapula Trust/ ACDI)

We may not have heard of the small Canadian town of Gibsons, but they have heard of us.

The west coast town near Vancouver, where the long-running series Beachcombers was filmed, relies on snowmelt and the Gibsons Aquifer for its water. But with climate change increasing temperatures in the area, Gibsons is dealing with a multi-year drought.

So in May this year mayor Bill Beamish issued a challenge to its citizens, asking them to live like a Capetonian for a single Sunday, and see what it is like to manage on 50litres of water a person, instead of the average 250l a person Gibsons’ residents use.

Afterwards Beamish told Cape Talk Radio that the challenge had been a success in that many people had taken part and been made aware of the consequences of unbridled water use.

The possibility of a major city seeing its taps run dry made world headlines.

Continue reading →