All things bright and broken

Meet Colleen, the third-born child of parents who share a chaotic relationship. Set against the backdrop of Cape Town in the 1940s, this is Colleen’s journey. It is a time of religious fervor, baptisms, conversions and Sunday school picnics. Apartheid can’t be escaped and is experienced by the children, who are bemused and confused by the flawed and unjust system.

The pages are crowded by a host of odd characters, at once lovable, eccentric and troubled. There’s Aunty Bubbles who teaches the children to jitterbug and Uncle Nicholas who speaks the Queen’s English and plays a trumpet in the Royal Navy Band. There’s Aunty Beryl, who carries a Chihuahua around in her handbag, and a midwife and home-undertaker named Two-Coffee-One-Milk. But not all is rosy in this richly peopled world. There is a human thread recognizable to anyone who has ever been in a co-dependent relationship, been abused, grown up poor or had an alcoholic father, which gives this book universal appeal. Sharp, insightful, and abundant in measured humor, it will resonate with many.