The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam

It is Rhodesia in the 1970s, and two young white sisters, Nyree and Cia, are growing up on an isolated farm, being brought up by their over-worked mother and their slightly cracked Oupa, while their father is off fighting the Terrs.

I reckon a Terr is about eight feet tall, he slobbers and his toenails are long, ragged and filthy. He tears the limbs off live vervet monkeys to gnaw and if he gets his hands on a cane rat, he guts it with a snaggletooth, the licks the entrails off his dripping chin. That's why his teeth are dark and rotted: if you feed on live animals, the blood stains them for ever. Cia nodded, satisfied, as if I'd confirmed what she'd suspected all along. But actually I know that Terr is short for 'terrorist' and Dad's show more always been fighting them because there's always been the War.

Oupa sits on the stoep, drinking gin and tonics, and sermonising about duty and damnation, the road to perdition, dereliction of duty, and his dead brother, Great-Uncle Seamus, a Prodigal Son and a Scoundrel who went 'astray'. The children are fascinated by Seamus and the hints of his story they glean from Oupa, and then one summer the story comes to life for them when their cousin Ronin comes to stay. He's a handsome boy, but under his polished exterior lies darkness.

This was a beautifully written book, filled with magic, both English and African. The characters were wonderful, although Ronin could have been better fleshed out, he seems to be evil without any chance of redemption, which seems unfair for such a young man. The location and time was also fascinating, it's an era I know very little about.

Overall, it was a bit of a corker. Funny, sad, disturbing. show less

A wonderful novel. We meet Nyree and Cia, two children living in a remote farm in 1970s Rhodesia. We follow their days in school and exploring the farm as far as the fence. Their crotchety grandfather sits on the stoep drinking gin and tonic. Their mother runs the farm with the farmhands and their father is fighting in the war. The girls find fairies and mysticism in the rainforest and mix this with local religions and christianity as they perform ceremonies. It is idyllic and funny as we see the world through the eyes of these young people. Nyree and Cia eat peanut butter and jam sandwiches in their different ways sitting on the step, they are clearly a team. Into this comes Ronin, an orphaned cousin. His dark cruelty chills the show more African heat. This change in atmosphere is very well done and this is a gripping and engrossing read with vivid images. From page 19, 'But though we live in a world laced with threads of magic, triflings like tooth mice and firefly fairies pale next to the powerful magic that dwells in the forest. When Cia and I enter its unending twilight, the earthly gives way to the unearthly, to the ethereal.' show less

I picked up this book in the library purely for my ‘World Challenge’ after reading that the author was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). As has happened a couple of times when I’ve picked up books on spec for that reason, it turned out to be an excellent read.

8-year-old Nyree and her sister Cia live on a farm in Rhodesia with their mother and grandparents, but the county’s political unrest means that Nyree’s father is away from home a lot of the time fighting. Nyree sees the political situation with childlike innocence and doesn’t realise the impact it will have on her family. Their idyllic life is interrupted by the arrival of their cousin, Ronin, a disturbed young man who makes their life very difficult and his arrival and show more the changing fortunes of the country mean that their lives will change forever.

This book, for me, had it all. It made me laugh, it made me cry. The characters are so well written, as are the descriptions of the country and it makes for such a vivid novel. There is a sense of foreboding throughout, not only because of the political turmoil but because one knows that, with the arrival of Ronin, things are not going to get any better for the family. A cracking read!

The one thing that irritated me slightly was the use of a glossary at the back for some of the African terminology. It could have been better if the translations of unknown words were done at the foot of the page, rather than at the back of the book, as it did rather interrupt the flow of this gripping story! show less

It seems that I am unintentionally reading a lot of childhood memoir books this year; fully or partly autobiographical or fictionalized. This book was the latter - two young sisters living in the family’s decaying mansion in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1978. The experiences have, I suspect, a strongly biographical slant.

However, don’t be misled by the rather frivolous title, which had the main benefit of making me learn how to spell ‘voluptuous’. It was a voluptuous read in the sense that there were lots of intertwining events and character developments to feast upon.

This book gently comments on a country in the throes of political and racial turmoil and decay, presenting a non-judgmental and naïve angle to the issues. There show more is civil war raging in the background between Mugabe’s ZANU party and the Ndebele people. Their father is fighting the Terrs (Mugabe’s terrorists), so is rarely seen. The sisters are brought up by their mother, their grandfather, Oupa, and a local Ndebele farm hand called Jobe. These characters allow the reader to explore different facets of Rhodesian cultural diversity, with Oupa’s Old Testament ranting, and the animist ancestor worship of Jobe. This is combined with the mythical world of childhood, which colours and mystifies the narrative.

There was good character development of the family members, especially the drunk, racist yet very likeable grandfather Oupa. A real sense of threat arrives with cousin Ronin, who is depicted rather two dimensionally as an unreadable and evil force.

Liebenberg re-creates that magic, naïve time of childhood when actions and words of adults are interpreted literally. The imaginative minds of the two girls is beautifully done. The startlingly vivid descriptions of heat and drought make one reach for the fridge to grab lemonade.

Liebenberg shows a gift for creating a reality of Africa for the reader. She illustrates the decay of Rhodesian society from the viewpoint of childhood and giving the reader a glimpse into the lives of various difference interrelated Rhodesian characters – the Dutch immigrant great grandfather, the blacks working in the gold-mines, racial tensions between tribes and colour, the lost world of white high society. They are all interwoven into a book that paints evil and good into everyday lives. There is a Conradian descriptive aura to the text, both in the depiction of the countryside, as well as the emergence of evil and intolerance in various guises. There seem to be dangers everywhere, from the burrowing worms, the snakes and the giant ants, to the more sinister character of Ronin, who is introduced mid-way through the book and inevitably winds up the story to the climax.

I enjoyed this read. This book is sad, heartbreaking, at times humorous and very vivid. As a first book, it is laudably mature and seems to avoid many of the first writer’s traps – not being too overblown with narrative description, too drawn-out, over-dramatic or too long.

She is a writer to watch. Highly recommended. show less

I found this to be a wonderful book, narrated by Nyree, an 8-year-old girl who is growing up in Rhodesia with her sister in the 1970s. We hear about the country's political unrest as seen through Nyree's eyes and her childlike understanding of it. Her story is filled with a child's innocence and faery tales about malevolent spirits, the mixture gelling to create a superbly dark tale. When the sisters' world is disturbed by the arrival of their cousin Ronin, you realise that some very bad events are going to occur because he brings with him a deep sense of gloomy foreboding. At times this book made me laugh out loud, but there are other moments of great sorrow that had me reaching for the tissues to mop my tears. I loved the way that show more Liebenburg gave her writing a Grimm style flavouring. For me it added to the darkness that surrounded this time in history. Overall, this was a funny, sad, poignant and haunting read and one that will stay with me for some time to come.

I have just one tiny criticism in that I would have preferred to have footnotes, rather than a glossary at the back of the book, for ease of referral when looking up the Afrikaan and Rhodesian slang. show less

This book was well-written and a fabulous look into a very different part of the world at a tumultuous time in Rhodesia's history. Unfortunately, the addition of evil cousin Ronin into the story spoiled it for me. I don't enjoy reading about psychopaths and the book will be memorable but for the wrong reasons, with some very disturbing images left in my mind that I would rather not have read about. The fact that the 8-year-old narrator, Nyree, felt she could do nothing until it was way too late just made me feel frustrated. So although it was an excellent and interesting story, it really was not to my tastes, unfortunately.

From the book cover:
"'Cia is my sister and I am her leader. The two of us are sitting on the flagstone steps outside the kitchen door eating our peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Cia peels hers apart, like she always does, and slowly licks out the filling, while I squash the layers of bread together between my palms until mine oozes peanut butter and jam goo, and then I gulp it down.'

Nyree and Cia O'Callohan live on a remote farm in the east of what was Rhodesia in the late 1970s. Beneath the dripping vines of the Vumba rainforest, and under the tutelage of their heretical grandfather, theirs is a seductive childhood laced with African paganism, mangled Catholicism and the lore of the Brothers Grimm. Their world extends as far as the show more big fence, erected to keep out the 'Terrs' whom their father is off fighting. The two girls know little beyond that until the arrival from the outside world of 'the bastard,' their orphaned cousin Ronin, who is to poison their idyll for ever."

This is an impressive first novel which was shortlisted for the Orange prize and understandably so. Their is a ring of truth about the tale, I suspect garnered from personal experience. It represents a child's view of what it was to live through these troubled times in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. show less