Devil's Valley

I kept asking myself for the first hundred pages, "is this a good book?" It is, but I needed to explain it to myself. The novel is set in a South African equivalent of, say, a renegade Mormon enclave in some lost canyon of remotest Utah (I apologize for the imperfect comparison). What sets the story in motion is pure detective story boilerplate: a young man who has fled the community for a life on the outside dies under mysterious circumstances after blabbing to a stranger about it ? who also happens to be crime reporter ("is this a good book?"). The reporter (predictably washed up and foul-mouthed) treks into the valley to get the scoop and finds a holler teaming with gothic characters, falling in love with one of the youngest and most beautiful of them ("is this a good book?"). Even the ending concludes on a predictable note of Judgment. And yet, I found this skeleton able to support a very rich and dialogical fabric of storytelling that drew me on and on. In particular, the predictable genre aspects of this structure allow Brink's moments of magical realism (there are many) to really take flight. Clearly the novel also functions as a parable about Afrikaners' collective soul-searching (or lack thereof) in the wake of "Truth and Reconciliation." But to this Southern American reader, this novel put me in mind of progressive, if not exactly liberal writers like Robert Penn Warren and Walker Percy: novelists who were also torn between celebrating and mourning the difficult passage of their people from feudal social relations to modernity. Anyway, when a novel starts engaging my own experience in this way, for my money, it is a good one.

I very much enjoyed Brink's novel "Devils Valley." A strange story that keeps you on the edge, wondering what is going to happen next. Magic, ghosts (looking and acting much like real people), and a gritty realistic texture to the location and people are combined with significant social insights and total unpredictability to make Devils Valley as _novel_ a book as any I've read. Brink's examination of local history and journalistic writing also delves into some interesting domains: for example, where and how much is it proper to delve into people's personal affairs.I'm a bit surprised that other readers didn't look at this book as more of an attempt by the author to describe a place that is more literally an aspect of the title itself. SPOILERS: Brink does not answer the question of whether we are reading about one person's hell (or purgatory) or not, but there is much in the book that hints that the main character, Flip Lochner, is in his own personal hell. We are told very little about Flip's previous life, as one example, other than that his wife kicked him out of the house, and that he has a grown son and daughter that no longer have much to do with him. Is Flip meeting other people that are involved in independent familial beatings and rapes, or are these people simply projections of his own past? There is much in Devils Valley that is hard to read, but it is done in a smart, engaging, questioning way. A great book, with much to think and ponder on.

I wasn't even sure at what parts I was supposed to supend my disbelief. Brink weaves a South African Boer mythology that makes the Greek version seem mundane. Like all mythologies, it explained a culture. His story of a village of secluded and inbred hyper-calvinist helped me to understand the Boer. And I don't mean that in a bad way. They were obviously a rugged God-fearing jihad going people, tougher than nails, living shrapnel. He brings you into their world view through the stories they use to explain it. This book is mighty.

This book captures the essence of being South African in a brutally funny way. Being a white, Afrikaans-speaking woman, I could identify in an almost frightening manner with the fallen hero of the book, Flip Lochner. 'Devil's Valley', with it's wonderfully twisted plot and surreal characters, took me on a shocking, surprising journey into a part of my heritage. It is a pity that this fabulous book will be less accessible to non-South Africans. It is such an intensely personal portrait of everything South African that the details are less likely to make sense to someone who has not grown up on that sunny southern tip of the dark continent.No doubt so much of the Afrikaans language (not to mention the extremely effective swear words!) were lost in the translation. I can liken it to good poetry; truely stirring in its original language, but less spell-binding when translated. I encourage people of all nationalities to give this book a try. If it's not your cup of tea, rest assured that a clan of white Africans will treasure it as a wonderful part of their culture.