The author of Serenity House and Kruger’s Alp (winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction) returns with a lyrical and taut novel about the past fifty years of white presence in South Africa, as seen through the eyes of a superbly authentic female character. Once it seemed to Kathleen Healey that Africa was empty and all of it belonged to her. An aviator, big game hunter, and knitting devotee, who once boxed three rounds with Ernest Hemingway, she would land her plane wherever and whenever she chose. She was free with her favors, too, and her multitude of lovers came from all over the world. But when she begins to fade with illness, she entrusts her only son Alexander to carry out her final wishes — a legacy guaranteed to “keep her smiling in her grave.
