Choke Chain

(Paperback)

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'There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children' Nelson Mandela 'An exceptional debut' Independent Alex is twelve, and he lives with his younger brother and his parents in a dirt-poor white neighbourhood in 1980s South Africa. He and Kevin are trying to grow up, while their mother, Grace, is simply trying to keep them safe. Apart from the usual lessons of childhood, the boys are finding out about deceit, petty crime and casual violence, and the person that's teaching them is their father. A devious, self-centred, volatile man, Bruce Thorne sees the world as a battleground where the winner is the one who throws the first punch. Ruling the family through fear, it is only when he abandons them for a teenage lover that their problems really begin. Exposing the rotten, insidious patterns of fathering that most societies still ignore, Choke Chain shows two boys struggling to find steady ground in a disintegrating household. Watching quietly as their mother diminishes in the black light of her husband, they learn that not all adults are right and true - that some have evil bred, or beaten, into them. Opening with a thunderstorm and hail 'the size of apricots', this extraordinary first novel is a series of emotional storms and aftershocks, with any brightness on the horizon shadowed by gathering dark. Beautifully written and intensely moving, the novel builds to the drama of its conclusion- the turbulence turning to frenzy and clearing, finally, to some redemptive light.

Reviews

Reads like a dream, races along and open-heartedly reveals one corrupt road by which boys should not become men. -- Janice Galloway
Choke Chain completely and triumphantly defines its own territory - the novel's restraint concealing its building power and its huge compassion. -- Alan Warner
His writing is clear and ungilded as he captures the experience of growing up under big African skies, and shows us Alex's world in all its freshness and promise... This is an exceptional debut * Independent *
An uncompromising piece about the lives of impoverished white South Africans, written in a style which owed something to Raymond Carvers laconic, chiselled sentences * Scotsman *

Author Bio

Jason Donald was born in Scotland and grew up in South Africa. He studied English Literature and Philosophy at St Andrews University and, in 2005, graduated from Glasgow University's Creative Writing Masters Degree programme with distinction. His first novel, Choke Chain, was published by Cape in 2009.