Full Circle

The book is about 12 year old Bandile who lives with his extended family – His mother, father, aunt and uncle. He is a healthy normal boy who loves doing normal boy activities. He loves soccer and Michael Jackson and would love to be an entertainer. One day his life takes a cruel turn when he is involved in a drive by shooting while innocently playing with his friends.

He is faced with a hard road to follow – one that requires tremendous support from medical team, his family, friends and his new school. and he has to find places in his soul that he never knew existed. Has he enough character to make a success of the life he has now been given.

Reviews of Full Circle:

Anon

“Normal life – Accident = Disadvantage
Disadvantage + Positive approach + Diligence + Cooperation = Dreams Realised” (done)

Manuela Cardiga (author of Guilty Pleasures)
I love this book. It is clean, fierce and courageous. Vera Alexander has taken us on a boy’s journey from the darkness of shattered dreams to the dawning of a new life, and has done so with ferocious tenderness, a refreshing lack of sentimentality. Her voice is completely unpretentious, clear as a bell. I loved her love of the African culture, so beautifully presented here, in its very tones and cadence. I highly recommend Full Circle. I can only say again: I love this book.

Elaine Duncan
The concept of this story is unique. The story progresses effortlessly page by page, and one never knows what to expect next, or where it is going. An initial reaction that baby Bandile’s life is destined to tragedy dissipates as soon as the colourful characters in the story are established, and it becomes apparent that he is part of a very loving family. This holds him in great stead when his life takes an unexpected turn.

Anon
There are morals in the story, but they are not shoved down one’s throat.
It’s a thoroughly engrossing story, and a very good read.(done)
I simply loved Bandile. Thank you for the privilege of allowing me to read it.
It is a book that knows no age limit. It will be enjoyed by teens and adults.

Pedro Barrento
This is a story about the difficulties that life throws at you and about your choices: being defeated or fighting back. It’s inspirational and well written. If you’re looking for an uplifting book with a moral to it, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Lolah Peel
What wonderful insight you have into the minds of others, and particularly Bandile as he went through the greatest crises of his life; and yet came out victorious. It is a HUGELY inspirational story and should be read by all. Your attention to detail is certainly worthy of merit and the support and love of his family was really heartwarming. There are many lessons to learn from this story…not the least of it being the healing power of love and encouragement by one’s friends and family. You are a compassionate and insightful writer and I wish you much success in any future endeavours. Kindest, Lolah.

Sunshine in Dark Times is a ‘coming-of-age’ story all pre-teens and young teenagers will relate to; it is filled with adventure, fun, friendship, tragedy, romance and – yes, most important of all – horses!  For all young horse-lovers, this novel is filled with great insight into the heartfelt art of True Horsemanship!

The novel is written in the first-person and the author writes for sensitive and intelligent young adults her own age – of both sexes; the heroine of the story is 15-year-old Rachel Delta. She narrates a three-year period in her life (from age 15 to 18) when an unforeseen and radical change in life circumstances suddenly catapults her into an unimaginable future, replete with both heartbreak and unexpected rapture…

Rachel’s story begins when she is forced to leave her secure home environment in West Palm Beach, Florida (where she lives happily with her mother in the same apartment block as her two best friends and her boyfriend) and has to emigrate to England to live in a huge mansion with her wealthy but seriously estranged father (whom she has no memories of at all since her mother eloped with her when she was only 2 years old and refused to ever discuss the matter)…

Once she arrives, Rachel soon discovers that her father is a selfish and brutal man.  He is abusive towards his five ‘live-in’ servants and totally indifferent to Rachel’s presence in his house, intent only on usurping the eight million dollars she is due to inherit upon turning 18 from a Trust Fund set up by her grandparents.  Furthermore, after arriving at the mansion, Rachel hears nothing further from her mother (who has gone to live with her new boyfriend in Thailand and is obviously going through a serious ‘mid-life crisis’ of her own).  There is no mention of any form of schooling after Rachel’s emigration to England – a serious oversight on the part of both her parents…

Thus emotionally abandoned, Rachel is left to navigate a premature transition from childhood to adulthood on her own and she compensates – filling in the emotional vacuum created by her irresponsible parents – by quickly making new friends and finding a surrogate ‘home-away-from-home’ at Greenwood Stables and Riding School, just down the road from the mansion.  The kind and responsible owner, Mr. Greenwood, becomes a sort-of surrogate ‘father figure’, while her father’s concerned housekeeper, Janine, assumes a motherly role towards her.

A lifelong dream of horse riding, entering riding competitions and eventually owning her own horse (Golden Sunshine) all come true as new social alliances are formed at Greenwood Riding School.  As the story unfolds, Rachel makes many new friends (and even a few enemies). A ‘special’ friendship develops between her and Adam, a young riding instructor of Mr. Greenwoods’ (who also happens to be from Florida) and this finally blossoms into romance… Disappointments and betrayals are experienced, but also moments of personal victory and intense happiness at overcoming life’s challenges.

The heart of the novel, however, is the love and trust that develops between Rachel and the mare, Golden Sunshine.  As Rachel cares for the traumatized horse (who does not trust people due to past mistreatment) and as Sunshine comes to love and trust Rachel (and other human beings again), so Rachel heals and discovers in herself an emotional strength and maturity (and innate love) to guide her through her own difficult transition in life.

Golden Sunshine becomes for Rachel a ‘lodestar’, her Sunshine in Dark Times, as she slowly lets go of the irredeemable past and embraces her full potential and the promise of the future. By the time she turns 18-years old (when the story ends) she has successfully navigated the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood, and has emerged victorious!

Book Reviewer: Quanta Henson

For: Umsinsi Press

Essentially, the allegory tells the tale of Rapula, a young ‘Racer Rat’, who is born into a very conservative social network, where traditions are rigorously maintained and all forms of questioning of ones given “lot in life” is seriously frowned upon.  In the course of the story, circumstances conspire to hurl Rapula into a totally alien set of social and material contexts which opens his mind to a very different way of being in the world.  Although some of these ‘lifestyle alternatives’ appear preferable in many ways to the ill-fated life of a ‘Racer Rat’ , the final (rather cynical) message of the book is that despite our social origins or our final social destinations, our individual destinies in the ‘rat race of life’ are not so different after all…

As the story unfolds, the reader is introduced to three representative social classes easily recognizable in South Africa.  Firstly, the ‘Racer Rats’ (class-focus of this story and class-identity of our hero, Rapula): this is your rural and township working classes, who lead extremely hard (yet simple) lives in which a strong family and community ethos prevails and traditional values and practices are religiously maintained in the face of radical change in the surrounding world.  ‘Racer Rats’ are described in the story as “humble, hardworking and respectful”; they adhere to socially-prescribed rules and routines, and gender roles.  The naked ‘struggle to survive’ is highlighted at this level of existence, in a pervasive atmosphere of material scarcity and lack.  The psychological outlook is uncompromisingly conservative.  ‘Racer Rats’ take great pride in their strong ‘work ethic’ – this is the source of their essential dignity.

In Magubane’s fable, the ‘Racer Rats’ live in the backyard of a shebeen and their sole socially-prescribed role and “purpose in life” is to “chase (after) rubbish” – specifically after the rubbish truck that comes by once a week to collect garbage – and ‘stash away’ as much garbage as possible for the ‘Racer Rat’ community (until the truck again does it’s rounds).  When Rapula (a fearful, naïve, introverted – but also rather proud and prejudiced – young ‘Racer Rat’) gets carried away accidentally in one of these trucks, along with his doting younger sister, Ronan (who, by contrast, is daring, extraverted and rebellious) they find themselves lost in the middle of a city, miles away from ‘home’ for the very first time in their lives.

Here they encounter ‘Sewer Rats’; these are your urban working and middle classes, governed by a more mercenary, capitalistic outlook on life while being essentially focused on enhancing personal enjoyment and pleasure.  They meet Bobo (working-class) who is ‘streetwise’ and lives in the sewer but possesses a more cosmopolitan outlook on life and Susanne, a fat, sassy, middle-class socialite who loves to entertain and lives a comfortable life near a restaurant.  Both Bobo and Susanne attempt to help Rapula and Ronan in the course of their feeble attempts to return back home, but not before Rapula encounters Steward…

Steward is a “Lab Rat’; he intrudes himself as a “scientist” and the reader will quickly recognize in him the qualities of ‘idealistic dreamer’.  He speaks rhetorically of higher ideals, his personal Dream, and of freedom – glibly quoting the popular South African aphorism “Education is the Key to Success” as the universal cure for all social ills… “Look what science has done for the world!” he enthuses to an uncomprehending Rapula.  He is clever, verbose and persuasive; he convinces Rapula to return and stay with him in his cage at the Laboratory (where his ‘owner’ performs scientific experiments on them both) until he can devise a ‘strategy’ to find Ronan (who has gone missing) and get them both back home safely.  This rat represents your newly-educated middle class – clever but deluded and (in turn) deluding others: more talk than action in the real world…

Sorely disillusioned, Rapula soon comes to realize than no rat is more (or less) ‘free’ than any other rat in the ‘race for survival’.  Steward has no understanding of what it means to “chase rubbish” (he leads a contemplative, sedentary lifestyle); Rapula has no understanding of what it means to “have a Dream” (there is no time for that ‘luxury’ in a ‘Racer Rat’s’ busy life) – and yet both of them still have to survive!

Steward’s solution is to become an experimental ‘guinea pig’ in return for food and a ‘roof over his head’ (and as a result of all the experiments performed on him pays the heavy price of being sickly all the time, with an illness that Rapula – as a ‘Racer Rat’ – has never even heard of).

Rapula, on the other hand – who prides himself on having a strong work ethic and for asking for so little from life – can console himself only with the fact that he (at least) will die with some dignity.  Perhaps we are all prisoners (he muses) and the only freedom we have is to choose our prisons… That being the case, Rapula opts for the simplicity (and greater honesty) of his original ‘Racer Rat’ lifestyle, but the final tragedy of the tale is that he and Ronan never make it back home…

Philosophically-speaking, the choice of rats to symbolize human beings in this fable is somewhat disturbing, that is, in terms of the ontological question: what does it mean to be Human?  Rats are highly intelligent and sociable creatures, with sophisticated social networks, but they live almost exclusively to eat and procreate; they are fundamentally scavengers of the most basic elements necessary to maintain physiological life which (in this fable) is sourced from rubbish bins….  Equating this to the human condition in general (and to material conditions in South Africa in particular) the allegory insinuates a materialistic bias at the very heart of human nature, which effectively negates all higher, more altruistic drives.  Furthermore, (given the economic context of this tale) the metaphorical emphasis on ‘rubbish bins’ is all too painfully real…

However, this negative (rather cynical) ontological viewpoint is partly redeemed in the closing chapter of the fable when Rapula, recognizing the common fate of all rats in the universal ‘race for survival’ acknowledges also a common identity with Bobo and Susanne (‘Sewer Rats’) and even Steward (‘Lab Rat’) which is more essential and binding than their differences.  This recognition humbles him and (at the last minute) moves him to altruistically sacrifice his own life for his small group of disparate friends, who have become (for him) now a ‘family’ transcending superficial class differences. 

In the final “bittersweet” chapter of the book, their mutual enemy (the indifference of Death in the form of a gluttonous house-cat) finally devours the willing sacrificial, hero-victim, Rapula, who acts as a ‘decoy’ while his  newfound family escapes to run the ‘rat race’ for just a little while longer…

Racer Rats & Rubbish Bins lays bare a shocking metaphor for life, one in which we, as human beings, both ‘eat’ and ‘are eaten’…  (What we live by, others have discarded; what we discard, others live by… We live off others and others live off of us… We are not separate from each other, nor are we as different from each other as we would like to believe …).

This book makes the reader ask: What kind of a rat am I? This book will definitely get you thinking!  It is a ‘light’ read with a ‘weighty’ theme… go out, buy it, and read it now!

Racer Rats and Rubbish Bins (2012) is published by Umsinsi Press.  It is available from Exclusive Books (Pavilion, Westville).

Book Reviewer: Quanta Henson