The Boy Next Door: A Novel [Hardcover]

This is a memorable and highly assured debut novel. In a crowded market of first novels this one stands out both for its unusual setting - Zimbabwe in the years following independence in 1980 - and for its sure handling, a keenly observed story by a writer who clearly knows the world she describes and who is obviously passionate about all her characters.

Lindiwe and Ian are the protagonists, neighbouring teenagers who inhabit very different worlds, she a black Zimbabwean, he a 'Rhodie' with the attitudes of a ruling elite. A terrible event brings them to each other's attention, and through the years of post white-minority rule their relationship develops from immature curiosity to - well you'll just have to read it to find out exactly what. Suffice to say each has a profound effect on the other, as their paths cross while their country goes through increasingly troubled times.

This is described as a love story in promotion and it's certainly that. However I felt it was so much more and that simple description didn't really cover the complexity of the situation. It's love, but love in a world undergoing wider turmoil as the Mugabe government, widely approved as a model of African democracy, descends into a regime of paranoia and fear. The political situation touches the worlds of these characters but it's not central and at its heart this is certainly a novel about people and not politics.

It's to the author's great credit that she breathes life into her characters, with even comparatively minor figures fully rounded and believable. Lindiwe's family are convincingly drawn, with subtlety and at times surprising detail. For example at a distance of thousands of miles and almost three decades it seemed astonishing to me that teenage girls were pinning posters of Duran Duran on their walls in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia just as in Europe and maybe the USA, but in fact they were. The mix of values, of clashing cultures, the search for personal happiness in a new nation racked by corruption, racism and the 'slim disease', all these pervade 'The Boy Next Door' and lift it well above other books you'll see described as 'love stories'.

Highly recommended.

This love story is set in Zimbabwe during the beginning of Robert Mugabe's leadership. The main characters - Lindiwe a black Zimbabwean and Ian a white Rhodie - meet as teenagers and again as young adults. I found the racism and mutual insecurity the strongest themes in this book. Other topics - like murder, infedelity, abortion, and others - are mentioned so very briefly, I wondered why the author bothered to include them. Interesting first novel, we'll undoubtedly hear more from Sabatini. I hope she'll be able to develop her stories better in future offerings

Breathe in. And out. Where do I begin with this review?

I received this book from Hachette Book Group; I'll start there. It sat on my bookcase for a while before I was ready to pick it up; it was intimidating and large and serious looking and I knew I needed to be ready for it. I started it, and fifty pages in I stopped and restarted it, and I'm glad I did. Restarting it allowed me to settle in with the narrative voice, it let me be fully familiar with Lindiwe and the way she uses memories to fill in the past so I can understand what makes the present so profound. The Boy Next Door is epic. It spans decades. It follows Lindiwe from adolescence through her transformation into a woman. She is fourteen when the novel starts, and her seventeen year old neighbor has been arrested for lighting his stepmother on fire. That's how the novel starts. But that's not where it stays. It follows Lindiwe and her neighbor, Ian, through post-independant Zimbabwe, through race tensions, and revolutionary riots, and love ,and loss, and danger.

Part 1 begins in the 1980's. Lindiwe is a young girl, shy, surrounded by racism and a country in transformation. Ian seems worldly to her, having been released from prison and returned to Bulawayo. They form an unlikely friendship, secret from the world. They are pulled together by an inexplicable bond that lasts through war and riots and years apart.

Part 2, the early 90's, finds Lindiwe grown into a young woman, attending school, with a future. Her childhood crush develops into something mature and deep. But there is always an overhanging sense of unease in Sabatini's writing; as though we know this happiness between Ian and Lindiwe cannot possibly last and be peaceful for the next 200 pages.

Part 3, the mid 90's becomes quick and tense. Revolutionary turmoil abounds, people are killed and murdered and violence surrounds them. The tension continues into the late 90's in Part 4. It peaks and I was left breathless waiting for the end. There is so much more I could write, but it would spoil the novel and you really need to read it and experience it first-hand.

Sabatini's debut novel is intense and beautiful and artistic. She captures Bulawayo and other places in Zimbabwe and they become characters in her writing, living breathing, forming new stories. The relationship she paints between Ian and Lindiwe is enormous and tragic and joyous all at the same time, it flows up and down with a life of its own, and we're taken along in the river and cannot escape. We could hardly wish to.

This novel was a debut novel, and it was beautiful. I had tears in my eyes. I suspect we'll all be hearing about Irene Sabatini in the future.

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