Book Review: The Boy Next Door
Irene Sabatini's remarkable debut novel about Zimbabwe is a kaleidoscopic blend of elements encompassing everything from coming of age and first love to race, nationalism and the rapid degradation of a once-thriving country. The story is at once sprawling and intimate, political and personal, and the prose ranges from lyrical to unpolished. Multi-themed and spanning almost two decades, from Zimbabwe's independence in the early 1980s through the incipient chaos in the late 1990s, The Boy Next Door is a big, ambitious novel that occasionally stumbles but ultimately succeeds in becoming greater than the sum of its many parts.
The novel is narrated by Lindiwe Bishop, a black teenager living in Bulawayo, who is fascinated by her white neighbor, Ian McKenzie, the titular boy next door. At the novel's outset, Ian is arrested and jailed for the horrific crime of immolating his stepmother. The chief constable tells Lindiwe's father; "Our white people are losing direction, left, right, and center, Mr. Bishop. Independence has confused them." But due to a lack of evidence, Ian is released soon after, and the two strike an unlikely friendship that Lindiwe must hide from her zealot mother and her school friends. Tentative at first, the friendship deepens while Zimbabwe itself begins to deteriorate. Ian leaves again, this time for South Africa. When he returns six years later, Lindiwe has become an educated, sophisticated woman and the country is well into its Mugabe-led decline. Although the two have a passionate reunion, Ian plans to leave Zimbabwe permanently. Those plans are halted when he discovers the child--his own son--that Lindiwe has kept secret from him. Amid the mounting political chaos, violence and danger, the two attempt to raise their son, build a relationship and forge their own identities.
Although there are so many characters and plot elements that Sabatini is forced to summarize large chunks of time with devices such as letters, she is able to convey the evolution of Lindiwe and Ian's complex relationship with brilliant nuance and depth. Her portrayal of their different but ultimately connected views on race, family and country is masterful. Like Lindiwe, Sabatini grew up in Bulawayo and was educated in Harare. Like many first novels, this story has an autobiographical feel, but one that adds authenticity and immediacy to the narrative. Sabatini's descriptions of Zimbabwe--its people, its languages, its politics, its beauty and its despair--are absolutely stunning and not to be missed.--Debra Ginsberg
Shelf Talker: A sprawling, ambitious and utterly compelling first novel about Zimbabwe that blends an unusual love story with political upheaval and national tragedy.
