Piggy Boy's Blues

Book excerpt: Nakhane Toure's debut novel, Piggy Boy's Blues, is for all intents and purposes a portrait of the M. family. Centred mostly on the protagonist, Davide M., and his return to Alice the town of his birth, the novel portrays a Xhosa royal family past its prime and glory. Davide's journey, from the city to pastoral Alice for peace and quiet, is not what he or the characters living in the forgotten and dilapidated house have bargained for. His return disturbs and troubles the silence and day-to-day practices that his uncle, Ndimphiwe, and the man he lives with have kept, resulting in a series of tragic events. Set mostly in the Eastern Cape (modern and historical) - in Alice and Port Elizabeth, Piggy Boy's Blues is a novel about boundaries, the intricacies of love and how the members of the M. family sometimes fail at navigating them.