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Jason stops to listen to yet another busker . . . He concludes that it is not for her voice--rather airy and desperate--that her open guitar case is bristling with greenbacks. It is for her strawberry blonde bangs peeping out from under her hat, and her deep blue eyes, and her willowy stature . . . and her bare feet with tan lines drawn by sandals . . . She is trying hard to make her voice sound full-bodied and round, but she was not born for singing. She loses a beat to say "thank you" after Jason deposits a single, and then she tries hard to catch up with the song before it goes out of control.
At that moment Jason recognises her. Rachel. Rachel Boucher from Jensen Township . . .
Athens County, Ohio, USA. When Rachel Boucher and Jason de Klerk meet again--five years after high school--they immediately renew their friendship. But for Jason their friendship is just a stepping stone to something more--a romantic union that seems to have the blessing of the whole community. That is until Rachel becomes involved with Skye Riley.
As Skye and Rachel grow ever closer, Jason's anger at the relationship boils over into violence, violence that turns the community on its head, setting old friends and neighbours against one another. But this is just a taste of things to come as, it turns out, Rachel is pregnant . . .
About the author
Zakes Mda is a South African novelist, poet, and playwright who is professor of English at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
