Bungalow: A Novel [Hardcover]

Lynn Freed (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1993

In 1975, after ten years away from her South African past, Ruth Frank encounters liberal, maverick Hugh Stillington and a new South Africa and, when Hugh is murdered, she must deal with a new legacy. By the author of Home Ground. 15,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ruth Frank, the child-narrator of Freed's critically acclaimed Home Ground , has grown up in this appealing novel. Having married and settled in America, she returns to South Africa after her father suffers a heart attack. There, she resumes her youthful romance with Hugh Stillington, a reform-minded landowner from a prosperous family of sugar barons. Both a member of the South African diaspora with unshakeable ties to her homeland and a Jew, Ruth is an outsider belonging neither in America nor in the country of her birth. Only in Hugh's bungalow does she experience the "keen sense of being in the right place." But when Hugh is murdered, leaving her pregnant, Ruth is forced to confront her sense of displacement. Ruth is a compelling heroine whose experiences shed light on white South Africa and its assumptions about race, class and belonging. And while the political turmoil of that country occasionally surfaces in a passing reference to Sharpeville or when an Indian writer is imprisoned for his views, the real story--like that of the biblical Ruth--is one of personal alienation and belonging. Though Freed's prose tends toward the heavy-handed, her main character's placelessness is powerfully rendered and profoundly felt.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Ruth Frank, the heroine of Freed's acclaimed Home Ground (LJ 8/86), returns to South Africa, her marriage a failure. She meets and falls for a maverick liberal who refuses to take seriously the racist rantings and social posturings of his peers. He is murdered and she is left, pregnant, to sort out her life. From such serious stuff, Freed has fashioned a continuously absorbing, savagely mocking comedy of manners about a community of wealthy Jews in South Africa in 1975. Bearing deracinated names like Edwina and Bunny, Ruth's friends have forgotten their own vulnerability in their newfound affluence; they make fun of the blacks in the university ("One of our favourite subjects. Academic standards") and bemoan their intrusion into white dress shops ("Loud colours, you know. Isn't it awful?"). With an unsentimental eye, Freed conveys the claustrophobic quality of life among social climbers in a profoundly racist society on the eve of troubles. A fine novel, with a strong storyline and an engaging heroine.
- David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671755870
• ISBN-13: 978-0671755874
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,209,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LYNN FREED was awarded the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award for fiction by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is the author of six novels, a short story collection, and a collection of essays.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Better with Age, August 17, 2010

By 

Reina Gutierrez "Prufrock" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bungalow (Paperback)

As a sequel to Home Ground, this novel fell short of my expectations. While the former novel is dynamic, charged with the innocent, daring, and sometimes appalling actions of a young Ruth, this novel seemed flat and even boring much of the time. Her spunk is missing, so is her passion. Only the bungalow engages her full attention and energies, as not even her marriage, her lover Hugh, or her baby are able to do. Ruth is disengaged with her life in America and South America; thus, so was I.

(On a side note: Ruth as a narrator is unreliable. Her middle sister Valerie and Valerie's husband, Bernard, are never mentioned in this novel, though they both affected her life as a child and adolescent. Additionally, in chapter 3, Ruth claims she wondered at age twenty-one how Hugh will feel about her virginity. Yet, the first sentence in chapter 17 of Home Ground, states she is eighteen when she has her first lover.)

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Freed's Crowning Achievement to Date, July 1, 2003

By 

Thomas W Cooney (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bungalow (Paperback)

Though Freed is a five-star novelist through and through, this novel is by far my favorite. It has the lean necessity of cruelty and violent thoughts and angry passion that has shaped the best of Nadine Gordimer's work set in South Africa. Though it might help to have read Freed's previous novel "Home Ground" (equally brilliant, if a little lighter and funnier), one can read this as is and be spellbound. (As for the cover . . . search for the original hardback.)

2.0 out of 5 stars Headed for the Garage, April 10, 2011

By 

Lee Armstrong (Winterville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bungalow: A Novel (Hardcover)

"The Bungalow" is the first novel by Lynn Freed that I've read. Overall, it is a book that I'm glad to leave behind. While several chapters -- the ones where someone dies -- are completely engaging, much of the book is mundane. As the book comes to a conclusion, we're still reading long descriptive passages which substitute for action. As the main character Ruth's marriage to Clive deteriorates, one wonders why she married him. There is so little chemistry or respect between them that we are left without emotional investment. Ruth's romance with Hugh Stillington is interesting, but still seems somewhat formal -- described rather than felt. The family characters of Ruth's parents and their squabbles are interesting; but the mother's racism which I found disturbing seems to be mildly accepted as a fact of life. The problem is that there really is no character to like in the book. "The Bungalow" heads for the garage sale bin.