Jo-Anne Richards's Books

The Innocence of Roast Chicken

By: Jo-Anne Richards

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The Innocence of Roast Chicken

By: Jo-Anne Richards

After an idyllic childhood and magical holidays on her grandparents' chicken farm, the conundrum is why Kate, now married to Joe, a human rights' lawyer, is so cynical, closed and rigidly unforgiving.Kate's unrelenting attitude, combined with Joe's loss of faith in his ability to promote change, precipitates a bitter and painful confrontation. The necessary expiation reveals a child's loss, a child's feelings of impotence, a child's anguish at her failure to pre-empt harm.Kate's salvation is painful, evocative, beautifully drawn and utterly absorbing. Praise for The Innocence of Roast ChickenJo-Anne Richards has the writer's eye, that natural ability to sniff out the telling detail and the right word. She is a delight to savour - one of the freshest voices to emerge from South African literature in years - Peter Godwin, author of MukiwaA rapturous and tactile evocation of dust, food, noises and a childhood domain, rendered with a marked empathy for the child and the magical properties of a child's stamping ground. Elizabeth Buchan, The Times (UK)Jo-Anne Richards displays a wonderful feeling for place and period . . . her prose is sharply evocative, and she conjures up the child's powerful feelings with a vividness intensified by nostalgia. - Margaret Walters, The Sunday Times (UK)

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Page Count

248

Published Date

ISBN 10

0747277265

ISBN 13

9780747277262

The Innocence of Roast Chicken

A Novel

By: Jo-Anne Richards

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The Innocence of Roast Chicken

A Novel

By: Jo-Anne Richards

The Innocence of Roast Chicken focuses on an Afrikaans/English family in the Eastern Cape and their idyllic life on their grandparents’ farm, seen through the eyes of the little girl, Kate, and the subtle web of relationships that is shattered by a horrifying incident in the mid-1960s. Scenes from Kate’s early life are juxtaposed with Johannesburg in 1989 when Kate, now married to Joe, a human rights lawyer, stands aside from the general euphoria that is gripping the nation. Her despair, both with her marriage and with the national situation, resolutely returns to a brutal incident one Christmas day when Kate was thrust into an awareness of what lay beneath her blissful childhood. Beautifully constructed, The Innocence of Roast Chicken is painful, evocative, beautifully drawn and utterly absorbing.

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