North Facing

(Paperback)

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For one long, intense week in October, 1962, it looked like the world might end as the Cuban Missile Crisis brought with it an East-West stand-off and the possibility of nuclear holocaust. This dark, bittersweet novel evokes the fear and confusion of the period through the experience of a young boy caught up in South Africa's political unrest following the Sharpeville massacre, Nelson Mandela's arrest and the State of Emergency. Paul, sensitive, isolated and desperate to fit in despite his English parents, has the chance to join the most popular pupil's gang and will do whatever is required to please its Afrikaans' ringleader. When a friend of Paul's parents is put under house-arrest, the boys become suddenly aware of a world beyond the school boundaries: the far-right is in the ascendant and South Africa is no longer safe. Added to this sense of unease, Paul's growing realisation of his sexuality sets him still further apart from his peers. Now a man in his sixties and living abroad, he is drawn back to Pretoria to revisit his boyhood home and make sense of the part he unwittingly played in the arrest of a charismatic teacher and his African lover.

Reviews

'Gripping and extremely moving - highly recommended. Tony Peake is in the top rank of South African writers right now.' - David Willers, Litnet

'This is the power of Tony Peake's writing... It's just heart-breaking... It's so shocking... When the book ends, you're absolutely hanging on every word on the last pages. You don't want it to end.' - Reading Matters with Sue Grant Marshall, Radio Today

'North Facing is an interesting character study that takes in large events and issues... But explores them from a small, personal viewpoint. The key turning points of the plot emerge only gradually, which is a very effective touch... Overall, this quiet-seeming novel is well worth a read.' - David Hebblethwaite

'Beautifully plotted, the reader is instantly connected to Paul as a character... Thoroughly compelling and unexpectedly moving, North Facing is a fascinating portrait of both a childhood and a country.' - The Bookbag

'Tony Peake's compelling and haunting new novel makes the political personal... It is elegiac in its depiction of things half-understood, telling in its detail - an African comb becomes totemic in memory - and a gracefully achieved work of art made more powerful by its quiet anger and understatement.' - Shena Mackay

Author Bio

Tony Peake was born in South Africa but has lived most of his life in London. His short stories have appeared in many anthologies including The Penguin Book of Contemporary South African Short Stories, The Mammoth Book of Gay Short Stories and Best British Short Stories 2016. He is the author of two novels, A Summer Tide (1993) and Son to the Father (1995), as well as the biography of Derek Jarman (1999).