The Alibi Club

by Jaco van Schalkwyk

In 1998 a young South African arrives in Brooklyn, New York. He becomes a bartender at The Alibi, a dive full of blue-collar workers, drug dealers, music lovers and Guinness.

At The Alibi, locals play pool and watch Jeopardy! as triple-A-listers from Manhattan eye their neighbourhood’s tree-lined avenues and buy up its historical brownstones. Soon soya milk and organic vegetables take up shelf space where cheap cleaning products and anaemic limes used to be. The Alibi is also the place from where its regulars experience the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, which leaves New York dripping with distrust while terror ripens on its sidewalks.

The Alibi Club, Jaco van Schalkwyk’s poignant debut novel, is a unique document about a city, a neighbourhood, and the lives of individuals, all changed irrevocably.

192 pages, ebook

First published September 1, 2014

Reviews

[Madri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nie 'n maklike lees nie. Die outeur wou kennelik nie 'n spanningsvolle storie skryf nie; hierdie boek is eerder 'n versameling indrukke van sy tydperk in New York. Met sy aankoms kry hy werk as kroegman by die Alibi klub, 'n vergaderplek vir randfigure en kroegvlieë. Heel gou suip die verteller net soos die karakters om hom, verval hy tot een van die permanente "inwoners" van dié "dive bar-hool". Die skryfstyl is strak, die beeld wat geskep word droewig. Hou verby as jy 'n boek soek vir lekkerlees.

[Mathilde Myburgh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book personifies the emigration experience, from first impressions and damning jobs to soul-sucking duties and emptiness, until our protagonist just wants to heal at home. Many South Africans, especially Afrikaner youth, feel or were told to feel the answers lie in finding home in another country. The protagonist was never home in New York, never comfortable, but tells an endearing, clearly sentimental story of his time there. A realist fiction. Beautiful in its awkwardness. Poetry at times.

[Anna Stroud · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Alibi Club reminds me of Raymond Carver and Jack Kerouac; the protagonist is a mix between Sal Paradise and a working class, gritty Nick Carraway.