The Shouting in the Dark

by Elleke Boehmer

Ella has a difficult relationship with her domineering father, and with apartheid South Africa, the troubled country in which she lives. Whilst seeking political refuge in Europe Ella makes an unexpected discovery that forces her to confront both her father's ghosts and the shape of her own future. In the Netherlands, the country of his birth, her father, Ella finds, never officially recognized her existence.

Reviews:

'The story, as disturbing as it is enthralling, of a girl's struggle to emerge from under the dead weight of her father's oppression while at the same time searching for a secure footing in the moral chaos of South Africa of the apartheid era.' -- JM Coetzee

'I have rarely read a book this transformational or darkly inspiring. A landmark in the literature of women's experience. This is a harrowing but poetically told account of a young girl's emotional abuse and in a sense, enslavement, at the hands of two badly damaged parents, set hauntingly in the context of apartheid era South Africa.' -- Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth

'A beautiful evocation of childhood. Like colours slowly blooming downstream.' -- Nadeem Aslam, author of Maps for Lost Lovers

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2015

Reviews

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Deeply underwhelming. I saw Boehmer speak and was impressed, so grabbed her book. Sadly, it didn't live up. There are kernels of wonder, as in the phenomenal descriptions of traveling across Africa in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and in the sliver of a plot that emerges at the end. But mostly it's a series of dull exchanges between three deeply unlikeable characters; if Ella was meant to be an appealing figure in any way, that attempt failed. The apartheid-era South Africa setting is untapped; this book could honestly take place anywhere, anytime that a kid hated her distant, stereotypically awful folks. As a cherry on top, the dialogue, particularly the father's, is some of the worst I've ever read. A real disappointment, especially with the Coetzee (!) blurb.

[Andy – And The Plot Thickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Shouting in the Dark" was a challenging read for about the first third of the book. It felt tedious, perhaps because it's so very bleak. I believe this was intentional but it meant I really had to convince myself to keep reading.

Ella grows up watching her father's anger overshadow her and her mother. A former Dutch navy soldier during World War II, he is disillusioned by how his country treated those who fought after the war was over. To him, Ella and her mother barely exist at times. At others, he hurls verbal abuse at them.

Growing up in a small town in KwaZulu-Natal during the height of apartheid, Ella cannot wait until she can leave home and escape her father's rage and her mother's bizarre grief, for having lost her sister, also called Ella, and her husband's first wife.

The one bright thing growing up is Ella's adolescent (and forbidden) crush on Phineas, the family's teenage gardener.

After her father's death and having left home, Ella discovers her father did not register her birth. This means she cannot seek asylum in Holland for having become involved in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Why would he have done that? Did he hate her that much? Ella is forced to confront the realities of her childhood, wrestling with her father in even his death.

"The Shouting in the Dark" is disturbing yet entrancing. It left me feeling rather desolate, and the feel is rather like JM Coetzee's works. Unsurprising then that Coetzee gave the book a resounding endorsement, calling it "enthralling".

Though the novel isn't very long, it took me a bit longer to get through. It's a slow burn, but well worth it.

[HelenDolly Plumb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn into this book from the blurb about Ella discovering that she was prevented from living in the Netherlands because her father never registered her birth. I felt this was an interesting idea and was looking forward to it being explored and was disappointed that it never was. The entire book is about Ella's father who is an odious man. I liked the character of Ella herself and wanted to go further with her, however following on from the long awaited death of her father the story is rushed through and it left me disappointed.

[Monique Mulligan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story of a fraught relationship between a daughter and her domineering father enthralled me with its often dark, often sad treatment of the migrant experience and the ghosts of the past. It’s a slow burner, with language at times as beautiful as the chapters are bleak; it’s not an easy read, but I found it an evocative and thought-provoking one because the subject matter hits close to home in many ways.

[Iain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elleke captures so well the South Africa I grew up in and the fathers who returned from the war and emigrated here as broken men

[Fleur · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is okay. Beautiful at some points, very hard to read at others. The ideas behind the story is what make it interesting, but I only know of these because I've seen Boehmer speak about the book. I am not sure if I could have appreciated it without that knowledge. But growing up in a patriarchal household is very familiar so in some ways I could relate to the main character.
Personally, it was the writing style that didn't work, the poetic sentences and overuse of adjectives made it hard for me to enjoy the story. It could also have done with more world building.

[John Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of about a Dutch girl growing up in South Africa about the same time I was growing up in Tanzania. The book chronicles her battles with her much older father and her mentally ill mother. I found the book somewhat disconcerting.