I was fascinated by this novel. By its supple, subtle, multi-stranded narrative, certainly, and by its accomplished technique ... Along the way, the narrative’s eye flits from one character to another, like a camera zooming in, pausing, then moving on. These portraits are superbly achieved, and the text is studded with memorable observations ... a generally terrific achievement.
...an intriguing and yet imbalanced novel about live in which political instability registers as a quiet quake beneath the feet of ordinary people ... George allows us into these marriages in intimate and revealing ways, switching between perspectives. It is not always clear why we spend more time with some characters than with others, and some motivations are clearer than others but, at its best, the novel delivers just the right types of poignant and telling details that make a character live for the reader.
...[a] cleverly plotted, suspenseful new novel ... The Death of Rex Nhongo paints a somber picture of the minor degradations and inarticulate sorrows of married life. Everyone in the story attempts to pass on risk to everyone else. The gun left in Patson’s taxi is a deadly piece of evidence, implicating and endangering anyone who comes across it. Through the author’s careful crafting of plausible scenarios, we understand the gun may fall into anyone’s possession at any moment — through loose talk, as a means of defense, by the deliberate attempt to trace it or simply through the random vagaries of life.
...[a] gritty, suspenseful new novel ... Through the eyes of these well-rendered personalities in The Death of Rex Nhongo, the reader encounters an intimate panorama of life in a dangerous city ... [George] does a remarkable job placing a dozen or so interlocking personal stories within a larger context of greed, lust, sacrifice, hypocrisy and horror.
There is suspense. There is violence. There is even occasional—and occasionally awkward—sex. And though the story takes place in Zimbabwe, it’s very much an international novel with international characters and themes...There is also humor, dry and dark when it isn’t unnatural and contrived. I laughed more than once. In some ways it reminds me of a Coen brothers film, a tightly plotted misadventure where senseless death is always right around the corner. But unlike a Coen film, it’s hopeful and intimate, mostly devoid of cold postmodern irony, and we tend to actually like many of the characters ... The only truly weak parts are the brief sections narrated by Rosie, a little girl transplanted from New York. The author attempts the voice of a young child and it just doesn’t work terribly well.
