A Slim Green Silence

Book excerpt: “You will know this thing when you see it,” the Boatman tells Connie, “and you must be finished by half past six.” As she floats above her hometown of Scheepersdorp, Constance West can’t tell how long it’s been since she died. Nor why the mysterious Boatman rowed her back here. Beneath her, all the people she loved appear to be thriving. But the house of her guardian, the town dentist and former mayor, seems suspiciously quiet. And then there is Marianne, the baby daughter she had to leave behind. In Beverly Rycroft’s beautifully crafted novel, a small South African town in 1995 forms the backdrop to Connie’s tale. With honesty, humour and tenderness, Connie unravels the stories of her loved ones, and allows a secret in her own past to emerge.