In her parched, crumbling corner of a Cape Town public housing complex, Deidre van Deventer receives a call from the South African police department. Her family home, recently reclaimed by the government, has become the scene of a criminal investigation. The remains of several bodies have just been unearthed from their land, after decades underground. Detectives pepper her with questions: Was your brother a member of a pro-apartheid group in the 1990s? Is it true that he was building bombs as part of a terrorist plot? Deirdre doesn't know the answers to most of these questions. All she knows is that she was denied-repeatedly-the life she felt she deserved: overshadowed by her brother, then abandoned by her daughter, Deidre has been left to watch over her aging mother, making do with government help and the fading generosity of her neighbors. But as alarming evidence from the investigation continues to surface, and detectives pressure her to share what she knows of her family's disturbing past, Deidre must finally confront her own shattered memories so that something better might emerge from what remains.
It’s been years since I read a book that strained the Likability Principle so viscerally ... This novel couldn’t be any more overwhelming if it came in a scratch ’n’ sniff edition ... The real artistry of Crooked Seeds lies in Jennings’s ability to make this story feel so propulsive ... Urgent.
Compelling, meditative ... The storytelling is strongest when the narrative introduces bits of Deidre’s past, so that we can piece together a clearer, if not complete, story, which includes the revelation of a daughter, tucked away in England.
There’s a stark quality to Jennings’s prose that is reminiscent of other South African writers ... No, this is not a 'feelgood' book, but it did make me feel good – feel joy, in fact, at its precise pursuit of its vision, at its grownup complexity and at the way Deidre is such a perfectly realised fictional creation ... Outstanding.
