“They sit in the doors of the Big Mamma Pumas, feet dangling out, all gung ho. Sometimes you have a bad hair day in the big fat sky – come back with holes in you.” First nothing happens, on the border between Namibia and Angola, 1983. A platoon of servicemen at a remote outpost kill time smoking, drinking, grating each other’s nerves. Eric draws Scope pictures to amuse his mates while he observes everything around him with a distant eye. They are mere boys, lounging in the waiting room to hell. When hell breaks loose all bets are off, and for Eric there is no excaping the horror of the scores he must settle. Written in hardened yet lyrical prose electrified with heart-stopping lines, Eric the Brave is an elegy on boot level that marks the arrival of a remarkable new writer.
Waking up in a rundown house on the outskirts of a mining town, Karl at first is uncertain who or where he is. What is certain is the pistol and cash in a duffel bag, and the grey Ford, modified for “leaving places quickly, but silently”, in the garage. Over the next few days, as glimpses of his past emerge, Karl stikes up a friendship with his new neighbour, ten-year-old Henri. But Henri’s dad is a small-time drugdealer fresh from the city, and his mother weak at protecting them against the violence of his father. All is not as it seems, however, as the real connection between Henri and Karl is revealed in Johan Vlok Louw’s poignant and potent new novel.
At an army base close to Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria, at the height of summer and South Africa’s Border War, 18-year-old recruits endure an appalling drill sergeant bent on turning them into killing machines for the sadf. They are sleep deprived, and tension mounts in this group of disparate individuals – boys from all walks of life – expected to function as a unit.
Billy’s dragon tattoo will attract strange looks in the Karoo town his family now calls home. It’s difficult to blend in when your father’s the new police colonel and your mother’s strung out on pills and wine. Before Billy meets Suzan, who makes him dream in a sideways world, the gangster Ou Joe’s roadside brothel provides strange comfort to truckers and curious youths alike. Ou Joe plans to leave a legacy before staging his final showdown with the cancer growing in his belly. After a brutal night, the colonel sets Ou Joe’s place in his sights and Billy must take a stand when good and evil are yet to pick sides. In the style of a modern western, Johan Vlok Louw’s novel is filled with youth, cars and guns.The book is an uppercut to the chin, its prose as evocative as the Karoo landscape of its setting.
Waking up in a rundown house on the outskirts of a mining town, Karl at first is uncertain who or where he is. What is certain is the pistol and cash in a duffel bag, and the grey Ford, modified for “leaving places quickly, but silently”, in the garage. Over the next few days, as glimpses of his past emerge, Karl stikes up a friendship with his new neighbour, ten-year-old Henri. But Henri’s dad is a small-time drugdealer fresh from the city, and his mother weak at protecting them against the violence of his father. All is not as it seems, however, as the real connection between Henri and Karl is revealed in Johan Vlok Louw’s poignant and potent new novel.
Billy’s dragon tattoo will attract strange looks in the Karoo town his family now calls home. It’s difficult to blend in when your father’s the new police colonel and your mother’s strung out on pills and wine. Before Billy meets Suzan, who makes him dream in a sideways world, the gangster Ou Joe’s roadside brothel provides strange comfort to truckers and curious youths alike. Ou Joe plans to leave a legacy before staging his final showdown with the cancer growing in his belly. After a brutal night, the colonel sets Ou Joe’s place in his sights and Billy must take a stand when good and evil are yet to pick sides. In the style of a modern western, Johan Vlok Louw’s novel is filled with youth, cars and guns.The book is an uppercut to the chin, its prose as evocative as the Karoo landscape of its setting.
At an army base close to Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria, at the height of summer and South Africa’s Border War, 18-year-old recruits endure an appalling drill sergeant bent on turning them into killing machines for the sadf. They are sleep deprived, and tension mounts in this group of disparate individuals – boys from all walks of life – expected to function as a unit.
“They sit in the doors of the Big Mamma Pumas, feet dangling out, all gung ho. Sometimes you have a bad hair day in the big fat sky – come back with holes in you.” First nothing happens, on the border between Namibia and Angola, 1983. A platoon of servicemen at a remote outpost kill time smoking, drinking, grating each other’s nerves. Eric draws Scope pictures to amuse his mates while he observes everything around him with a distant eye. They are mere boys, lounging in the waiting room to hell. When hell breaks loose all bets are off, and for Eric there is no excaping the horror of the scores he must settle. Written in hardened yet lyrical prose electrified with heart-stopping lines, Eric the Brave is an elegy on boot level that marks the arrival of a remarkable new writer.
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