But the triumph of this extremely moral work is the uneasy dependency which the couple develop towards their theatrical black lawyer, himself an ambivalent symbol of the new South Africa caught between old roles and new status. It moves with the restless pace of living itself if it is a parable of present violence, it is also an affirmation of the will to reconciliation that starts where it must, between individual men and women. Gordimer's portrait of the couple, particularly the wife, confronting her failures as a mother, is well drawn. Nadine Gordimers novel is a passionate narrative of the complex manifestations of that final test of human relations we call love. It soon becomes obvious that the couple do not know this son who was despatched to boarding school without ever imposing himself on their respective routine. Everything they believe in is challenged when their only son is charged with murder. Their lives are ordered and protected within what remains a violent society. Harald and Claudia are complacent white liberal South Africans. This intense, carefully plotted courtroom thriller is about far more than investigating the crime. Within four years of publishing what may prove her best novel, None to Accompany Me, with this novel the 1991 Nobel Laureate confirmed that the changing situation in South Africa has not left her lacking a direction.
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