When Laurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital posting in a former homeland of the new South Africa, Frank, a fellow doctor there, is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not - young, optimistic, and full of new schemes. The two become uneasy friends, while the rest of the meagre staff in the deserted hospital view Laurence with a mixture of awe and mistrust.

The tired, ghostly town beyond the hospital is also coping with new arrivals, and the return of old faces. The Brigadier, a self-fashioned dictator from apartheid days, is rumoured to be still alive. And down at Mama's Place, the town's only watering hole, a group of soldiers have moved in with their malign commandant, a man Frank has met before and is keen to avoid for his own dark reasons. Laurence wants to help - but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last.

Shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize.

A sinister and shadowy novel which has more going on underneath than it initially seems on the surface. After you put it down, you begin to realize what kind of maelstrom of conflicting personalities and moralities Galgut has thrown together in this story. A very effective illustration of the uncertainties and uneasiness that surrounds the "new" South Africa.

En route to msjoanna who claimed it in the Africa Swap at BookObsessed.com. Hope you enjoy it.

This looks really interesting. Thanks for offering it in the swap. It should be an interesting counterpoint to The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing, which I'm currently reading.

Lovely, spare prose, a brilliant ending, and thoughtful musings on innocence, experience, and saving the world. Narrated by Frank, an older and experienced doctor working in a near-failing hospital in South Africa, the book traces the arrival of a young and idealistic new doctor doing a year of community service. As the new doctor tries to "do something" to help the local residents, conflict surfaces between the entrenched staff, the locals, and the new doctor.

But throughout the book, the conflict stays just below the surface, just out of reach of the narrator and the reader. Rather than wrapping the story with tidy moral bows, the narrator muses on how difficult it actually is to figure out the right action in complicated situations.

This will soon go in the mail to AceofHearts, who won it in a later Afrikan Swap.

received today with my birthday presents. Thanks

My mom, AceofHearts, passed away from breast cancer on September 17, 2013. Aside from being one of the best people I know, she was an avid reader and took immense pleasure in Bookcrossing, her book club, and reading many great books. Unfortunately she didn't get around to reading this book.

We had similar tastes in books and would share them whenever we read something we enjoyed. This book sounds interesting so I'm going to keep it to read.

Frank Eloff is a doctor in a poorly funded hospital in remote South Africa. He is coasting in life and career, with his marriage just a signature away from divorce and his career moving nowhere in this small town. When a new doctor shows up for a year rotation, Frank is forced to share his room. Laurence Waters ends up being an idealist, wanting to make a difference in the world. Frank tries to tell him that's not the way things work in this hospital, but Laurence won't take that for an answer. Frank doesn't completely shut Laurence down though. Laurence is able to chip away at Frank's exterior, but it's not just Frank he's fighting against.

An interesting premise, but I'd be lying if I said I understood the ending. The whole book has a pretty depressing feel to it and the final state that everyone found themselves in was probably the most depressing of all. The more things change, the more they stay the same is very true for this book. Though the people of the village weren't discussed too much in the book, I can't help but feel like they were the real victims in this entire story.

To the finder of this book: I hope you enjoy reading this book. Please keep it or set it free when you're done. If the book is of no interest to you, please release it into the wild for someone else to find and enjoy. I hope you will make a journal entry so its journey can be tracked and to let me know the book has been found. You can remain anonymous if you wish, but if you join BookCrossing, you are in for a great experience.

Apologies for the delay, but I just wanted to mention that I picked up this book in the PATH (TD Centre) on Monday, May 28, 2018. I have not decided yet if I will read the book or release it into the wild, but rest assured, it will not sit idly on my desk for much longer.

Special thanks to the previous owner, user "HoserLauren", for releasing the book into the wild and for keeping the book is such great shape!