One Black Ear

Not long after the release of Nelson Mandela and the birth of the new South Africa, aging father Tom Lembruite moves to the small, conservative town of Fynberg, with his new wife, 40 years his junior. His purchase of the town’s only restaurant and investment in a nearby farm nestling in the foothills of the Drakensberg, sets in motion a chain of events that changes the lives of his children forever.
Three of the siblings have joined Tom in Fynberg and come face to face with the challenges and opportunities of this now free land. His son Dirk may have got more than he wished for whilst paternal twin sisters, Pat and Lerryn, find themselves on equal footing for the first time, since their early adolescence.
Roger, our narrator for the most part, is a well-intentioned yet ambivalent baby boomer, reflective about the challenges both black and white people face in a changing South Africa. Visiting Caracal Ridge, Dirk’s reinvented cattle farm surrounded by mountains, memories are triggered of his own experiences as a young white boy growing up in the era of apartheid. His reflections provide insight into the minds of white South Africans during this period, and some of the thoughts that many would never admit to, not even to themselves.
One of the young farm workers, Jon, wrestles with his own dilemmas presented by his country, now governed by a black majority, torn between his father’s traditional beliefs and the opportunities presented by his expanding role on the farm.
Despite its geographical remoteness from city life, the farm finds it is not immune to the legacies of a society grappling with the trauma and consequences of apartheid. As the family negotiates the traumatic twists and turns of their new lives and relationships, unexpected events occur, one even making the national dailies.