Customer Reviews

America Hurrah and Other Plays

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In this stunning novel, Mr Galgut tells the story of a fugitive from justice hitchhiking in the desolate backdrop of South Africa and who is picked up by a driver, a minister on his way to a remote parish. When the minister discovers that the hitchhiker is a fugitive and confronts him in a disused quarry, the response is lethal.
This novel is a masterpiece featuring a story and characters utterly compelling. The author shows that even the quietest spots on earth can seethe with repressed violence. A blunt and tense read about guilt and evasion of truth. Justly enough, Mr Galgut has been compared to the greatest South African writers like Andr? Brink, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee and Achmat Dangor.

I had read The Good Doctor and enjoyed it plenty for great characters, great writing and a slow-building, relentless tension. The Quarry has the same great characterization and prose, but nothing at all slow about it. The beginning of the story is enthralling, both the introduction to the main character and the first incident at the quarry (best not read liner notes etc more max effect). What continues seems a combination of Greene's "Power and Glory" (in terms of "feel") and Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" (in terms of suspense and pace). A fantastic aspect is the power of the not explicitly stated (e.g. main character's real name never revealed, ). And the construction and build-up to the denoument is something Tolstoy - like. The Quarry is clearly another example of the spectacular literature of South Africa.

This book is written by Damon Galgut and not what is showing up on Amazon. Published in 1995, I enjoyed this novel far more than Coetzee's Disgrace which I found misogynistic and very much written by a white South African with little sensitivity to the changing South Africa. The Quarry follows the life of a nameless white man on the run from the law who is walking Northwards on an unspecified and largely unpopulated part of South Africa's western coast. He meets a black minister who the man without premeditation kills when the minister tries to grope him. The man then takes over the minister's identity since the minister had been travelling to start a new job as a missionary in a small town. The quarry is just outside this town and this is where the minister is buried. This short novel follows the man's descent into a dark harrowing abyss, mirrored by the two black brothers, Valentine and Small, who rob his car of all the minister's possession on his first night in the town. Galgut's policeman character is especially intriguing from the policeman's obsession with his red motorbike to his handling of the theft and murder. This finely written novel explores identity, law and religion in a South Africa without any specific time or political reference.