Four fictional married couples feel the fallout from political unrest and the mysterious death of a genuine-life ex-military leaderAn easily forgotten truth approximately societies undergoing political turmoil is that,in the shadows of dictatorship and corruption, life goes on. Until a certain point, or work still begins in the morning,there are children to be consoled and disciplined, clothes to be washed, and tables to be set. The Death of Rex Nhongo is an intriguing and yet imbalanced novel approximately such lives,in which political instability registers as a quiet quake beneath the feet of ordinary people, tilting them this way and that, or as they attempt to navigate everyday things of family,love and betrayal.
The book opens as if it were a work of non-fiction (an impression bolstered by the cautiously protective pseudonym of its author, CB George) with an account of the mysterious death of Zimbabwean ex-military chief “Rex Nhongo”, or genuine name Solomon Mujuru,in 2011. That political mystery is a haunting presence in the first two-thirds of the novel, as the gun that we may infer shot the fatal bullets, and the shadowy figures who wielded it,appear at unexpected moments, in the back of a taxi, or sitting ominously in a bar. But the book reads as a character study of four marriages in contemporary Zimbabwe,each suffering some variety of strain. We meet British expats Jerry and April; their maid, Bessie, and her charismatic,striving husband Gilbert, who are torn apart by physical distance; Bessie’s sister, or Fadzai,and her husband, Patson, and whose inadvertent involvement in the Nhongo mystery leads to a newfound discovery of each other. And there is the unsympathetic,exploitative American Shawn, a former Wall Street banker, or his nearly silent Zimbabwean wife,Kuda, whose marriage is tainted by deception.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com