We Are Not Such Things: The Murder of a Young American, a South African Township, and the Search for Truth and Reconciliation

by Justine van der Leun

In the vein of the podcast Serial, a gripping investigation of an iconic murder case that calls into question the accepted narrative that has come to exemplify the process of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa

The story of Amy Biehl is well known in South Africa: After the twenty-six-year-old white American Fulbright scholar was brutally murdered on August 25, 1993, during the final, fiery days of apartheid by a mob of young black men in a township outside Cape Town, her parents’ forgiveness of two of her killers became a symbol of the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa. Inspired by the story, Justine van der Leun, an American writer living in South Africa, decided to introduce it to an American audience. But as she delved into the case, the prevailing narrative started to unravel. Why didn’t the eyewitness reports agree on who killed Amy Biehl? Were the men convicted of the murder actually responsible for her death? And then van der Leun stumbled on another brutal crime committed on the same day, in the very same area. The story of Amy Biehl’s death, it turned out, was not the story hailed in the press as a powerful symbol of forgiveness, but was in fact more reflective of the complicated history of a troubled country.

We Are Not Such Things is the result of van der Leun’s four years investigating this strange, knotted tale of injustice, violence, forgiveness, and redemption. It is a gripping journey through the bizarre twists and turns of this case and its aftermath—and the story that emerges of what happened on that fateful day in 1993 and the decades that followed provides an unsparing account of life in South Africa today. Like Katherine Boo and Tracy Kidder, van der Leun immerses herself in the lives of her subjects. With her stark, moving portrait of a township and its residents, she provides a lens through which we come to understand that the issues at the heart of her investigation—truth and reconciliation, loyalty, justice, race, and class—are universal in scope and powerful in resonance. We Are Not Such Things reveals how reconciliation is impossible without an acknowledgment of the past, a lesson just as relevant to America today as to a South Africa still struggling with the long shadow of its history.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Africa, South Africa, Crime, Politics

544 pages, Hardcover

First published June 21, 2016

Reviews

[Esil · Rating 4 out of 5]

We Are Not Such Things is a really interesting book. Justine Van der Leun is an American who moved to South Africa a few years ago with her South African born husband. She wasn't sure what to do with herself, so she set out to write a book about Amy Biehl, who was a young white American Fulbright scholar killed in South Africa during an uprising toward the end of Apartheid. The unusual thing about Biehl's death is that her parents publicly forgave four men implicated in Amy's killing and created a charitable foundation that employs two of them. The book is as much about Biehl and her death as it is about Van der Leun's quest, including the relationships she developed with the individuals involved. Van der Leun does a great job of providing a tremendous amount of information about the history and current politics of South Africa. She also does a really good job of depicting this incredibly complex country. She really brings to life many of the individuals she meets -- who represent an impressive cross-section of South Africans from different backgrounds -- and the environments they live in. At times, the details of her journey felt like too much information and the book lost its focus. But this is a relatively minor criticism. Don't read this book if you want a definitive answer to what happened to Biehl. Do read this book if you want an interesting perspective on contemporary South Africa. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

[Laura F-W · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish that I could give this more than one star but I really did not enjoy it. I was suckered in by the blurb’s comparison to the Serial podcast, but while Serial was a masterpiece of storytelling, this book was a flabby meandering mess.

We Are Not Such Things is supposedly an investigation into the 1993 murder of Amy Biehl, a young white American Fulbright Scholar studying in South Africa in a time of social and political upheaval. Biehl was beaten to death in Gugulethu township outside Cape Town by a mob of anti-apartheid and black rights protesters. Four of her killers were convicted and imprisoned before being released via Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Linda and Peter Biehl, Amy’s parents, attended the TRC hearings and openly forgave their daughter’s killers. They founded the Amy Biehl foundation and gave two of the killers, Easy and Ntobeko, jobs working for the charity. The story garnered lots of media attention and was held up by many as an example of unity and the triumph of the TRC.

Fast forward around 20 years and Justine van der Leun a white, American erstwhile travel writer, moves to South Africa with her husband. At a loss for anything to do, she begins to research the Biehl case, interviewing Easy, Linda, and many others.

Here’s a bullet list of my problems with this book:

1) So much extraneous detail This book could easily be edited down to less than 200 pages without losing ANY pertinent information. It was actually amazing how rambly and unfocused it was. Most sections would go something like this: [“I met so-and-so to talk about this-and-that”], [Twelve paragraph description of where they were when they met, what they were eating, what colour the sky was, every single person in the vicinity], [Three random pages about the TRC/gugulethu/corruption in the SA police/history of SA politics], [“So I asked this person what they knew about the Biehl case. They shrugged”], [Next, I met so-and-so], ad infinitum.

Here is an actual example of a preamble to a witness interview:

“Mzi and I were sharing an egg salad sandwich from the supermarket. Mzi’s five-year-old nephew was alternately doing cartwheels around us and sucking on a red lollipop that was slowly staining his white tank top. Then he changed into a green T-shirt and had a piece of cake, which he smeared on his new outfit”.

I’m not joking, literally none of the that information had ANY bearing on anything. I think the idea behind these ‘asides’ is to add character and build up an idea of time and place but none of the information is in any way interesting and if you cut all of this stuff out the book would be at least a hundred pages shorter (and probably a lot better). It was infuriating.

2) There’s no pay-off Throughout the first three-quarters of this 450-page-long book, van der Leun hints that she’s made a dark discovery about the case, and everything is not as it seems. But what she ‘discovers’ is really not revelatory. In fact, it’s basically irrelevant - revealing it will not affect anyone’s lives at all. Furthermore, the way she went about revealing these benign tidbits was tortuous and totally not worth it.

Then, weirdly, after the supposed big reveal, the book goes on for another 70 pages talking about nothing in particular, then it just tails off!

3) ME, ME, ME I found the author incredibly self-absorbed. So much of what she wrote was just virtue signalling - yes, she was a privileged white woman living in a wealthy neighbourhood, but the people of the township took her in and accepted her as one of their own! They called her when they had emotional problems (eg, Ndumi), they all knew who she was! She was basically one of them by the end of it :) :) - blergh. Yeah, except she headed back to her massive house and full fridge at the end of every day.

I definitely got a whiff of white-saviourism from this. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with a white American going into South Africa to investigate a decades-old racially motivated murder, but I think she lacked the humility and self-awareness to pull it off. The way she referred to Easy sometimes made me physically cringe (“But twice, for his birthday, when I presented him with what he referred to as “birthday chicken”, an entire roasted bird, he ate it all by himself in under thirty minutes, very neatly. Years later, I emailed him a Happy Birthday message, and promised to maintain our tradition when I next came to Cape Town. ‘I can’t wait to have my birthday chicken when you are back in South Africa chickens are few now and thanks so much to remember my birthday chicken', he replied” [Emphasis my own] [While this is a an isolated passage, I feel like this tone cropped up again and again the book and didn’t sit well with me])

4) It was a bit unfair I think two people in particular - Ntobeko and Linda Biehl - were unfairly maligned in this book.

First, Ntobeko falls out with van der Leun because he didn’t want her to tell his story. He wanted to write a book about it himself and he felt that the story was being appropriated by an outsider. I think that is a pretty legitimate stance to take - the author isn’t from South Africa and just waltzed into the country twenty years after the fact, writing and researching a book fuelled solely (in my personal opinion, not Ntobeko’s) by white privilege and misplaced confidence - but rather than addressing this, van der Leun paints him as angry and slightly unhinged.

Further, Linda Biehl, Amy’s mother (and let's remember, a woman whose 26-year-old daughter was murdered and who went on to openly forgive her killers), ends up taking Ntobeko’s side and issues a legal request for van der Leun to desist from writing the book and researching the subject. Again, van der Leun disregards her wishes in quite a callous way, vaguely intimating that by that point she felt part of the story and part of the Gugulethu community (blergh), and publishes the book anyway.

Anyway, this has turned into a much longer review than I intended, but I really did struggle with this book.

(With thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC copy in return for an honest review)

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

We Are Not Such Things: The Murder of a Young American, a South African Township, and the Search for Truth and Reconciliation by Justine van der Leun is a 2016 Spiegel & Grau publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I read true crime on occasion, but I probably would not have selected this book without a little prodding, and the marketing ploy that suggested that this book was 'in the vein of' the podcast, “Serial”.

This book does not resemble the podcast in any way, shape, or form. So if that is what you think you are getting when you start this book, you will be very disappointed.

Still, I am the type of person that once committed, will not, if at all possible, give up on a book. So, I plodded on and on and on. I managed to complete the book, but it took me a good long while to do so, and I struggled with it mightily.

Once I started reading the book, a vague memory began to surface, and I realized I remembered hearing about this case on the news way back in the 1990’s. In those days I did not, and still do not, watch the news if I can help it, but the case made national headlines, and this was well before social media had taken hold, before you heard all about something whether you wanted to or not, so it was a big story there for a while. I remember the media really playing up Amy’s anti-apartheid activism and the irony of her murder by an angry mob aimed at killing whites.

The story got even weirder, when Amy’s parents arrived in South Africa, embracing the men accused of murdering their daughter. This act by Linda and Peter Biehl became a symbol for the Truth and Reconciliation process.

Twenty years later, Justine van der Leun moved to South Africa with her husband, and finding herself at loose ends, becomes interested in Amy’s case, especially when it comes to light that the men who went to prison for her murder, may, in fact, be innocent.

Naturally, one cannot write a book about Amy’s murder without explaining the racial and political climate of South Africa in the early 90’s. The author painted a vivid picture the country, the divisions, the way of life and so on.

She even inserted herself into the personal life of Easy Nofemala, giving the reader an in depth look at his life and the inconsistencies of his story.

While some real doubt is raised about what actually took place the day Amy died, there are no pat answers. It’s left up to the reader to make sense of what happened that day, and frankly, you won’t be able to discern that based on the information collected here.

The book is very disorganized, or dishelved, and is more about the country than the crime, more about men accused of the crime, than about the crime itself. This true crime is not at its best, and while parts of the book are indeed very interesting, it seemed to ramble and go into exhausting meanderings that had my eyes crossing in sheer boredom.

This book was obviously a huge undertaking, extremely ambitious, and complex, but at the end of the day, for me at least, it didn’t live up the expectations I had going in and was not at all the type of story I was anticipating.

Overall, this one gets 3 stars

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amy Biehl, an American Fulbright scholar attending university in Cape Town, South Africa, was set upon by an angry mob and brutally murdered on August 25, 1993, in the waning days of apartheid. Four young men were sentenced to prison for her death but two were later granted forgiveness for their crimes by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission under President Mandela. Amy's parents, Linda and Peter Biehl, attended the proceedings and were entirely in agreement, feeling the best way to honor Amy was to form a foundation in her name that would help the people of the community, employ these young men and help them build better lives.

Twenty years later, journalist Justine van der Leun set out to learn 'the Big Truth.' Were these young men political activists fighting to help bring down apartheid or merely bloodthirsty hooligans? Had in fact the right people been identified for the crime or were these four merely plucked out of the crowd to make sure a form of justice was served? What motivated the Biehls to be so forgiving? And has their foundation accomplished anything after more than twenty years?

The author talked to many of the people involved in the case and grew quite fond of Easy, one of the accused men who now works for the Amy Biehl Foundation as a driver. But even from him, the one she got to know the best, Justine was never quite sure she was getting a straight answer, since his story changed from time to time, and others who knew him and were witnesses that fateful day had different slants on what they remembered as 'the truth.' Most of all, Easy would like Justine to believe that "we are not such things."

This is first and foremost a human interest story about the sad and needless death of one young woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and about the workings of mob mentality. But the author fleshes out the story well by giving the reader an encapsulated view of the history of South Africa in general: how and why Europeans came to settle the area, how apartheid developed for the benefit of the white population and how it fell apart, and how civil war was circumvented under Mandela, who sought to build a better nation for all. In doing so, she gives the reader an idea about what life is like for black South Africans now, but more importantly to the story, what things were like for them under apartheid. Along the way, Justine learns some 'Life Lessons'--that there might be two, three or more sides to the truth, depending on who is telling the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to learn more about South Africa and wish to thank the author, publisher and Net-Galley for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of this important work.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amy Bielh was a white anti-apartheid activist who was brutally killed by a group of blacks in an South African township. Men were arrested, convicted and jailed for the crime. Years later with the help of the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" the convicted confessed to their crimes and received amnesty. Remarkably the Biehls forgave the killers, started a foundation, and even employed some of the men.

Enter Justine van der Leun who decides to write a book about the incident 20 years later. This quest takes her on a very long (4 years), confusing, revealing, and tenacious journey towards the real story. The book does a wonderful job of describing the plight of black South Africans and you get a real feel for the good and the bad of this complicated country. It is a story of race, loyalty, injustice, compassion, betrayal, secrets, ulterior motives, and the deleterious impact of widespread institutionalized racism.

However, the book was much too long and repetitive. I also found the ending anti-climatic. If you are looking for a definitive story of exactly what happened that day you will not find it. Instead you are left with more questions but questions are good.

[Lela · Rating 4 out of 5]

What did I think of this book? Hmmm - good question. It is very interesting and full of the story of a particular time in the history of South Africa told from a point of view rarely given light. The author begins with a quest to answer questions about the beating and murder of a young, idealist white women by a gang of young black men in the township of Guguletha. The young woman's parents and her supposed killers took part in the Reconciliation project of Mandela, Tutu and others. But the author finds the facts and the words just don't add up. I learned so much from this book and my mind kept going to what is happening in our country with all the killings & murders of young black men and the protesting of the obvious racism. This book has much to recommend it and in many ways it deserves more than my 3 stars. However, I felt there were too many time shifts and too much repetition and in need of some editor to cut it down. I know stories are often given depth by both of time shifts and repetition, but, for me, there was just too much of a good thing. We who are far from the trauma of South Africa want to believe in the end of the oppression of apartheid. We want to believe in the beauty of reconciliation. This book gives us instead the grittier, uglier truth of how difficult it is to accomplish either of those things when dealing with people who have always been oppressed and another set who have always been masters. It is an enlightening book - very well researched - as nonjudgmental as it is possible to be. It is heartbreaking. I wish it had left me feeling hopeful. I would like to be a Pollyanna but now that's impossible!

HAVE CHANGED RATING TO 4. After rating another book a 3, I realized my real problem was matter of form. This story has stuck with me and given me much to think about - so I changed the rating to a 4.

[Megan Doney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like the author, I am married to a white South African, and I've spent a good bit of time in the country as well. Van der Leun can write very well, and she piercingly describes the contrast between the townships and informal settlements and the gilded neighborhoods of Cape Town. This is one of the most dissonant aspects of life in SA: the first world smashing up against the third. And she also highlights the slippery nature of truth and reconciliation in a country that remains so divided and unequal.
For me, there are two serious flaws: One, the "reveal" which she builds up for the first 2/3 of the book never really pans out. I am left with "so what? what now?" It's telling that Linda Biehl sends her a cease and desist letter while she is still in the process of writing. What does that reveal indicate about the case itself? How does it affect Amy Biehl's mother? How are we supposed to see the case and the country differently as a consequence?
Second, van der Leun has said that she is indebted to writers like Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, and I think she would have done well to adopt LeBlanc's writerly distance. Van der Leun is a deeply problematic storyteller, for me. All of the characters, white and black, are caricatures: white women covered with diamonds and bemoaning the laziness of blacks, blacks with an insatiable appetite for fried chicken and "jabbering" in Xhosa. I think of the white South Africans I know, many of whom are working tirelessly to ameliorate social inequity and to educate others about the effects of apartheid and systemic discrimination. Additionally, van der Leun's friends in the township speak to her about their political activism, their incarceration, their appearance before the TRC--all intimate, painful topics--and then she is indignant and surprised when some of them ask her for money or rides afterwards. She seems so ignorant of what they have just given *her* that she can't believe their audacity at asking for something in return.
Books like this are why I won't write about South Africa.

[Krista · Rating 5 out of 5]

This honest review is in response to an ARC given to me by NetGalley.

I find it hard to sum up "We Are Not Such Things." This story is one writer's exploration of what actually happened to Amy Biehl, an American student who was killed in 1993 in South Africa as part of a worked-up mob action. The book extensively features the author's first-hand (and often, hard-fought) interviews many participants and their families.

But this book is far, far more than that. It is not a search for a humanity, but a steady, painful insistence that humanity has been part of this story all along, and continues to be. Justine Van Der Leun is using Amy Biehl's story to talk about ongoing problems with South Africa, and she spares nobody, including herself.

It's hard to critique the work. While I started off cringing with the assumption this book would be a "white savior/mystical black African people" narrative, by the end of the book you have a 3D image of the main black African characters, and JVDL shows her own limits (and those of charity types) as well. The book is relentlessly sad and infuriating, but this goes with the topic matter. (JVDL's use of characterization both lightens the mood at times and makes the failings of individuals more disappointing.)

In short: This is a devastating, intelligent work that leaves one with a lot to ponder regarding South Africa, how we treat the past, and our responsibilities for the present.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I belong to the Newest Literary Fiction Goodreads group, and our monthly buddy reads are usually (you guessed it) new lit fic. For July, however, our moderator challenged us to read as many non-fiction books from our TBR lists as we could find room for. Although at last count I had 97 non-fiction books waiting to be read, I had been moving them to the bottom of my list; they sounded interesting, but, really, reading non-fiction is too much work. I don't want to have to learn anything during my pleasure reading time (said in that lovely teenage whine we parents all adore). Nevertheless, I decided to accept the challenge, at least to the extent of reading one book, and picked up Justine van der Leun's We Are Not Such Things. The title was taken from one of the defendants at the Amy Biehl murder trial in South Africa:

STATE LAWYER : You see what I am going to suggest to you, Mr. Nofemela, is that the attack and brutal murder of Amy Biehl could not have been done with a political objective. It was wanton brutality, like a pack of sharks smelling blood. Isn’t that the truth?

EASY NOFEMELA : No, that’s not true, that’s not true. We are not such things.

I had originally added this book to my TBR list for several reasons. As a lawyer, I was interested in the criminal justice process in South Africa in light of my recent research into personal freedoms in Africa and the Middle East. I remembered the Amy Biehl murder on the news. Given the current breakdown in race relations in the United States and the call for reparations for institutionalized racism, I wanted to see how South Africa, once the most openly racist nation in the world, handled that issue, and having handled a case involving a white South African years ago, I wondered whether the assumptions made about him were based in fact. While van der Leun addressed all of these questions, she did so not as a pedant, but by incorporating them within a well-written and very engaging story centered around real people: the black men convicted of murdering Amy and their relationships with each other, their communities, and (surprisingly) Amy's parents.

The narrative flowed back and forth in time and among points of view, but its non-linearity was not confusing. Instead, it brought into stark relief a point too many of us forget in the heat of an apparent injustice: there is no single "true" account of any human drama. Witnesses focus on and remember different things; observations and memories may change over time as different interpretations arise or motives are exposed. Along the way, I did manage to learn a few facts about South African culture and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

My only complaint was van der Leun's decision to devote three of the final chapters to Daniel de Villiers, a white man attacked by a black mob on the same day as Amy's murder. In the book's opening chapter, van der Leun implied that de Villiers's experience radically altered the "truth" surrounding Amy's death:

After months of frenzied searching, I had finally found an old and ruined man who had also been in Gugulethu on that August 25, 1993, though few remembered him. Nobody had ever told his account of that day, nor made the chilling links between what had happened to him and what had happened to Amy Biehl five hours and a quarter mile away. The old man knew something about brutal mobs and racial violence, and he was the final piece in the jigsaw I had been painstakingly piecing together for two years.

Even after three chapters, I failed to see any meaningful connection between de Villiers and Amy, so I ended the book resenting van der Leun's change in focus and momentum (not a good place for an author to leave a reviewer). Van de Leun lost half a star for this misstep, but overall, she successfully suppressed my bias against non-fiction (for now, at least).

I received a free copy of We Are Not Such Things from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Penny Schmuecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is hard to believe that it has been 22 years since the end of apartheid in South Africa. As often happens, the passage of time often lessens the intensity of things: As we get farther and farther away from a situation, we forget how outraged we were or the extreme happiness we felt. Most people probably have not even heard of Amy Biehl. While her tragic murder was headline news at the time, her name surfaces fewer and fewer times and in the larger picture, apartheid is talked about less and less. We lose fascination with things on a more regular basis because in today’s world, it seems there is always some bigger news story to read.

Amy Biehl was a 26-year old American and a Stanford University graduate who had gone to Cape Town, South Africa on a Fulbright scholarship in 1992 and was a witness to the crumbling of apartheid laws that had crippled South Africa since 1948. Her activism ultimately led to her death on August 25, 1993 when she was brutally killed in an attack in Gugulethu Township as she drove a group of three friends home. Although the murder was a mob scene, four people were ultimately arrested and tried for her murder.

As part of South Africa’s abolishment of apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed as a means of granting amnesty to anyone who believed they had been a victim of violence under apartheid laws. As part of this, political prisoners, of which there were many, could also go before the commission and request amnesty. Violent protests by members of the black majority parties often resulted in indiscriminate arrests which suppressed an uprising and allowed the ruling party to remain in power. By allowing those arrested to come before the Commission and state their case, the TRC hoped to bring a small amount of peace and empowerment to the black majority who had been barbarically treated for years.

Justine van der Leun researched Amy’s story and at the same time provided a history of white settlement in South Africa and how this tremendously impoverished nation became a cauldron of anger that was just waiting to boil over. Never boring, the background that she provides lends itself to a clearer picture of what happened the day that Amy drove into the Township of Gugulethu.

The four men arrested for Amy’s murder were ultimately pardoned by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Intrigued by the fact that Amy’s parents, Linda and Peter Biehl, also decided to forgive their daughter’s murderers, Justine van der Leun spent four years researching the facts of this unlikely story. What she found was perhaps more than she bargained for. She tracked down and befriended the four men who had been arrested, contacted and interviewed witnesses to this murder which happened at a township gas station, and spent countless hours scouring news articles and government documents pertaining to the murder. She discovered that there were about as many accounts of the event as there were people in the mob that day. However, van der Leun delved into just one of many tragic stories of apartheid and came up with a story that will leave a scar on you. This is one of the most informative, well-researched books that I have read in some time. Truly understanding Amy’s death must also mean understanding the tumultuous political culture of South Africa during apartheid and Justine van der Leun has done a phenomenal job in explaining both. This book is a winner!

My sincere thanks to Justine van der Leun, the publisher, and NetGalley for the privilege of reading an ARC of this compelling book.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

I don't really know how to review this book. I picked it up not knowing very much about South Africa and apartheid. I finished it with a much better understanding of the harm apartheid continues to reap to this country.

This is one of the most engrossing books I have ever read. Justine spent many years researching Amy Biel's murder. She befriended everyone involved even peripherally in the crime. She reviewed every document she could find from the government, police and courts. She searched for the truth of what happened that day.

In the crazy entirely messed up world of South Africa politics and culture it's almost impossible to discern the truth of anything.

[Lissa00 · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1993 Amy Biehl drove into a South African Township around the time of the dissolution of Apartheid. Her death at that moment became a media target for how the new South Africa politics would work and what constitutes politically motivated violence. The author discovered this story after moving to Cape Town with her fiancé and realizing that while numerous articles had followed the story, a book had never been written. She then threw herself into the research and made close acquaintance with many of the people involved. This is not an easy story and there is definitely not a clean conclusion. South Africa is a place with a tumultuous and violent history of race relations (not very much unlike my own country) and the riot that eventually killed Amy was not a clear cut murder case but instead a convoluted event with many people involved and too many differing accounts to keep track of. This book is extremely well written and the author does an incredible job of fairly telling the complicated story. I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 5 out of 5]

We Are Not Such Things by Justine van der Leun is a very highly recommended account of the story behind the headline. During the last days of apartheid, on August 25, 1993, Amy Biehl, a 26 year old white American Fullbright scholar, women's rights advocate, and anti-apartheid activist, was murdered by a mob in Cape Town, South Africa. Four young black men were convicted for the crime.

South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation program was put in place four years later - once apartheid was officially over. The Truth and Reconciliation program was an experiment in restorative justice and offered release from prison and a clean slate to anyone who took full responsibility for their crimes and could also prove that their crimes were politically motivated. Two men who were convicted for Amy's murder were released under this program. Amy's parents publicly forgave those involved with Amy's murder and started a foundation carrying Amy's name. The foundation even gave the men who were released jobs.

Van der Leun, who was initially interested first in how the forgiveness in the Reconciliation program affected real individuals, later became intrigued by the discrepancies surrounding Amy Biehl's murder. Even though it had been twenty years since the tragedy, she decided to dig deeper, and meet the people involved. She wanted to uncover the real story and ended up forging relationships with several men involved. She also presents background information and history of the colonial legacies present in South Africa. Many of the events started years ago are what lead to the huge gulf between blacks and whites that continue to this day.

We Are Not Such Things is a fascinating, well-researched look into a specific highly publicized murder case. Van der Leun makes it clear that there are still issues between the races today in South Africa. It becomes abundantly clear that the governmental systems in South Africa are broken, or extremely dysfunctional, which made getting information or trying to research difficult. She also asks some difficult questions and uncovers questions about the true story of Amy Biehl's murder.

I was totally immersed in this story. It is about a murder, and van der Leun thought it was going to answer the question, "How could the Biehls forgive their daughter's murderers?" and address their celebrity status over their forgiveness. But then it evolved into a story about South Africa - its social problems and people. I could see where some repetition of what people said could be bothersome to some readers but I didn't have a problem with it. It seemed to reflect what she was experiencing or being told by people she was talking to, the repeating of a story, right or wrong, without question. It took many interviews and questions to uncover a glimmer of the truth.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher for review purposes.

[Mainon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently spent a week in South Africa, and found myself wanting a little more insight into the country. I was familiar with Mandela and Tutu and had even studied the post-apartheid Truth & Reconciliation Commission briefly, but those are all high-level, international-scale perspectives. I wanted something more personal.

What I found was this book. When I stumbled onto it, I knew nothing about Amy Biehl, a white American activist who was brutally murdered in South Africa in 1993. Her parents started a foundation in her name, and publicly embraced the TRC process, eventually reconciling and working closely with two of the men convicted of Amy's murder.

Twenty years later, Justine van der Leun decided to write Amy's story, and ended up as a quasi-investigative journalist, digging beyond published facts and public stories to try to get at buried memories and forgotten connections. She was in many ways more successful than I would have imagined she could be, and some of what she uncovered is fascinating and moving and thought-provoking. At the same time, the foreshadowing of her findings was a little heavy-handed; the first half is full of "little did I know then..."-type teasers that, cumulatively, I found annoying and distracting. Nonetheless, I appreciated her thoroughness: she spent literally years visiting some of the people involved on a frequent basis. It's clear that some of the characters grew to trust her so much that they gave her unprecedented access, not only to their impressions, memories, and opinions, but to their current experiences. The latent anthropologist in me loved the slices of Xhosa cultural traditions and language, and I even ended up on YouTube to try to learn how to pronounce Xhosa correctly (hint: it involves a click of the type you might make to "giddyup" a horse -- I recommend this YouTube video if you'd like to hear it yourself).

Recommended for world travelers, for those interested in other cultures or in South Africa particularly, for true crime aficionados, and for anyone interested in the problematized social constructs of truth, justice, guilt, and the like. In some ways, the poignant lack of easy answers in this book may illuminate the complexity of America's own race issues, their prominence recently heightened by the tragedies of Treyvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and too many others.

I received a copy of this ebook from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!

[Angel Hatfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy had been part of a mob twenty years earlier that had hunted down a young white American girl. He hurled jagged bricks at her and stabbed at her while she begged for her life. She died that day and her name was Amy Behliel and she was twenty six years old. The man’s name was Easy and he got eighteen years in prison . He said at the time his spirit said kill the white. Amy had been two black students a ride when she was pulled from her car.There were three other men who admitted to going in on with Easy to kill Amy. S. Africa had been in the final days of apartheid the entire country seemed on the verge of civil war. The country had just been through forty five years of state regulated racial segregation and Black S. Africans had been contained in slums with no rights. Amy was an activists for the black people and had studied for almost a year on the rights and roles of disadvantaged women and children of color. The four men spent a couple of years in prison and under a new law were released.
I did not know about this murder but this book was so interesting. I don.t think i met to request this story but was glad I got it after reading it. I feel the author did an excellent job on this as it was a true event. I do highly recommend.
I received an ARC of this story for an honest review.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really interesting read and I'm so impressed with how deeply the author goes in to research and interview for this story. I feel like I really got a glimpse into not only the issue at hand (the murder) but also what it's like to live in South Africa, a country I really know so little about. Fascinating all-around. My only negative comment is that I wish there were photos to go along with the story. One of the reasons I like non-fic reading is to connect real life images with the story. I understand why images were not included (I think) but it left me a wanting a bit.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest, fair review.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book from Good Reads.

Non-fiction, excellent, well researched factual history of a murder which happened in South Africa during apartheid. The author writes what she knows, as a South African. This murder was a HUGE deal here in the US because the victim was a recent Stanford grad.

Reads like a fiction book, with lots of turns and ironic twists. Fascinating history of that evil known as "apartheid."

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amy A young American volunteering in South Africa is murdered there by three young men ,a murdered that shocked the world.when the men are arrested they ask for forgiveness.Amys parents Americans are amazing people rare people who have forgiveness in their heart.The book this story her family the murderes each with their own story will shock surprise &keep you turning the pages.

[J David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a chilling story of murder and racism in South Africa. A tour-de-force. A stunning journalistic look at the injustices that sadly prevail. I was captivated by both the story and the prose. It is a great read of a sad story. I highly recommend this book.

[Chadwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What did I do? I'm sorry." -- A dying Amy Biehl to one of her attackers

I remember the terrible, senseless mob murder of Amy Biehl in South Africa in 1993 like it happened yesterday. It was heartbreaking in its needlessness: the bad luck and coincidences that led her to drive into the township where she was killed; the fact that she was due to move back to the United States in just a few days; the sad irony of her being a committed anti-apartheid activist. But more than that, it also hit a little close to home. Amy was my age and I knew people who had been at Stanford with her; one of my family members had recently studied and worked in Africa; and my wife was attending law school with Amy's boyfriend at the time of the murder. It was a shocking event that resonated with me and those around me.

So, I kept up with the events that followed: the trial, the very public story of forgiveness and reconciliation, the creation of a charitable foundation in Amy's name, and so on. This was a story I thought I knew.

But when I began reading Justine van der Leun's account of the murder and its aftermath, I was quickly surprised. The narrative I was familiar with turned out to be false or misleading in important ways. Her book is an impressive feat of investigative journalism in pursuit of "truth" and "justice" -- or some version of it. Along the way, she gets to know many of the participants in the story (including the convicted murderers), takes us into the townships, and places the story of Amy’s murder within a broader South African context. She shows how the story became a key part of the mythology of a South Africa coming to terms with its past while trying to forge a new future in the world.

To say that she immersed herself in her story doesn't begin to do it justice. She devoted years of her life to unraveling what happened. I've read comparisons to Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD, and there's certainly something to that. Van der Leun similarly puts herself at the heart of the story, for better or for worse. In the end, van der Leun’s book becomes her own story too, not just a story about Amy Biehl and South Africa. Is it too personal? Does it lack objectivity? Those are tricky questions. But, ultimately, I found myself trusting the author and I was impressed by her integrity and determination. Despite some misgivings about her approach, I found her book to be strangely compelling and compulsively readable.

This is troubling and complicated stuff. There are no easy answers, and lots of moral ambiguity. Van der Leun makes some missteps and her account is sometimes awkward, but she has written an intense and fascinating book. Strongly recommended.

(Thanks to Spiegel & Grau for an advance copy via a giveaway. Receiving a free copy did not affect the content of my review.)

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

In most cases, journalists investigate crimes and historical events in order to clarify them, to sum them up into neat, cohesive narratives with no loose ends, where everyone's individual role is clearly understood and what's left is more or less the final word on what happened. Which is what makes We Are Not Such Things so interesting. Essentially, what van der Leun does here is the exact opposite. She de-clarifies events, dismantles the narrative and leaves any understanding of events in chaos. The reason is this: a neat narrative has existed for 20 years. Amy Biehl, a young American studying in South Africa, was murdered in 1993 by an angry mob of black South Africans protesting decades of oppression and apartheid. A few years later, the men convicted of Biehl's murder were released though the Truth and Reconciliation Committee proceedings, their crimes excused as politically motivated. More important, the killers were then forgiven and embraced by Biehl's American family and became productive, upstanding citizens working to improve the country with a NGO named for their victim. It's an inspirational story, serving as a clear thematic microcosm for the journey of the country itself from apartheid to Mandela.

It's also, according to van der Leun, mostly untrue. And, throughout this book, the author re-investigates the murder twenty years later, talking with Biehl's family, the men convicted of the crime and assorted South Africans with information about what really happened that day. In the process, she portrays a South Africa still very divided along racial lines, a black majority that still largely lives in squalor and, most important, the reality that little in the official story of Biehl's murder is accurate. That some of the people imprisoned and then released were probably not involved at all. That others who probably were were never arrested. That almost no one was interested in finding the whole truth once the official narrative came together. It's intriguing, and although the book runs a little long in its digressions into the family lives of various characters, it makes a logical and persuasive statement about the reliability of our official stories of historical events and even recent occurrences. In short, we as human beings seek cohesive narratives over messy, uncomfortable literal truth. Here, the clear implication is that the truth seldom aligns so conveniently with our explanations.

[Snakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really tough one to rate. It was an interesting story but went on far too long. I never lost interest in the story but was also willing to set it aside for other things regularly. The writing was good but didn't keep me coming back regularly. Tangents abounded. Curiosity was indulged. But the book was far too easy to put aside. And it should never have taken me nearly a year to read it. So certainly not terrible, but then again, not amazing.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. This is an interesting story of an investigation into the death of Amy Biehl in South Africa in 1993. The premise had me hooked with its comparison to the Serial podcast and it did have some similarities, but I didn't find it as gripping as I found that story. Like many non-fiction investigation books, it didn't have the ending I was hoping for and it was very long, so I felt a bit deflated when I finished. But since the book is based in reality, I can only imagine that feeling greatly multiplied for the author when her research was done. If nothing else, I found it to be a great insight into people in another culture and another reminder that truths are usually not black and white.

[Allen Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I recently won this book from the Goodreads Givaway. Really enjoyed it.
Just the subtitle reels you in. Lots of twists and turns. Great read, especially for those who may be ignorant of apartheid and the lingering aftermath of it in South Africa.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not an easy story to read. I believe that it was also not an easy story to write. Ms. Van Der Leun spent four years of her life chasing down and detailing the story of how Amy Biehl a white American woman, a human rights researcher and Fulbright scholar was murdered one hot, dusty violent day in August 1993 in South Africa in the waning days of apartheid. Four men were tried and convicted of her murder. This is also their story and the story of South Africa.

It is the story of apartheid and the price paid by so many South Africans. The price still being paid. It is a story that needed to be told because the message contained in its pages is more than a story of death, it is a story of survival. A story of the Xhosa of Gugulethu, Cape Town, South Africa. A naturally kind and close knit people whose very existence, peaceful way of life and future was hijacked, decimated by all those who came to their land to conquer, abuse and enslave them. A story of, as Langston Hughes hinted at, the outcome of a dream deferred and what it does to the collective consciousness of generation after generation until one day it implodes leaving no one untouched, not the aggressors or the victims.

This is a very complicated story and Ms. Van Der Leun was relentless in her attempts to discover the truths of that day. Even when others, including Ms. Biehl's own mother tried to discourage her she would not be dissuaded. Her tenacity to discover the truth is inspiring. She became obsessed with it and rightfully earned her Xhosa nickname, Nonzamo, "she who strives and perseveres." She ventured forth to where few white woman would dare to go, befriended the very men convicted of Amy Biehl's brutal murder, repeatedly interviewing witnesses, perpetrators, family members, police officers, militants, idealists, dreamers and gangsters, any one and every one with the slightest involvement to that day. And to all she asked, "What really happened? Did you kill her, stone her, stab her? What did you see, do, think? What do you know? Who else might know more?"

No, it's not an easy book to read. The first half of the book meticulously lays the groundwork of the ensuing story. The Biehls feel somewhat one dimensional. I never truly felt a connection to any of them not even Amy. But this is not the author's fault for when a person does not wish to be known, they will remain unknown and one dimensional. It is also not Amy's fault since she was already 20 years in the grave and more a cause, an example of everything right with truth seekers and wrong with South Africa by the time the author was piecing together this story. Amy is held up as the paragon of selflessness by her family and others trying to make sense of such a senseless loss; as a cautionary tale of naive culpability by wary white South Africans living now behind steel gates and high fences; and as a woman who forgot who she was and where she was by those who have lived their entire lives learning how to survive in an unforgiving land. Those who know that just a second of carelessness and all can be lost. As for the most high profile Biehl, Amy's mother Linda Biehl, she is a paradox. A cultured and intelligent woman who for all her intelligence has buried herself in the past only pretending to look to the future. Someone who admits she'd rather not know the truth of that day. Someone seemingly more comfortable with image than with substance. A person afraid to let go of the myth of what her daughter represents for fear there will be nothing left to keep her afloat. Who can really blame her for like the others she is a victim who also deserves our compassion.

I felt the author connected better with the black South Africans who befriended her and tried to help her understand the enigma of their homeland. Those who tried to help her unravel something they knew was beyond the unraveling. She grew very close to many of them and so I believe was able to better understand and present a people both open and transparent while simultaneously guarded and secretive. She did not judge or condemn. She recorded and tried to understand, revealing that when she eventually moved away it was these people and places she missed the most. She also freely admitted to her own confusion, anger and frustration being unable to truly comprehend the many incongruous customs and circular reasonings of her black South African friends and acquaintances from the POV of her privileged white American upbringing. She painfully admitted to her own growing insousience, in just a few short years, to the incessant army of the beggared and bankrupt she encountered every day. Understanding the negative effect upon the author of this interminable suffering and of her growing knowledge of the impossibility of effecting relief helps us better understand the weight of centuries of hopelessness upon the population. It helps us better understand the acts of that day and the years since.

It was not until I was about 50% through the narrative that I felt the story really begin to gather momentum as the author draws us deeper and deeper into the Xhosa community and their trust of her grows. Our curiosity builds as to what would compel a person or a group of persons to behave as this mob did. We want easy answers but there are none. We desire closure, a beginning, a middle and an ending to a story. The ending does not always have to be happy or satisfying but we do desire it to bring us some sense of closure. This story unfortunately has no closure. No true ending either happy or sad. It merely just surrenders itself leaving the reader with a feeling of sorrow and loss. Amy is still dead, the Xhosa are still poor, oppressed and pawns caught in a story of centuries old abuse and poverty. Only the color of their oppressors skin has changed. The men accussed of murder now freed are still prisoners but now of the very narrative that set them free. Those never brought to what little justice was possible are unknown, unknowable and more likely than not already weighed, sifted and judged by the cruel harshness of an unforgiving land.

It is not the author's fault this story has no closure. Her effort has helped shed more light on this story than ever before. Her herculean effort has forged link to link where once there were none. At the very least it helps us gaze inward and outward at what our own response would be/is to the sufferings and challenges we must admit still exist worldwide to this very day. At its best it helps us to better understand the complicated, multilayered story of South Africa. A story still being written whose best days are hopefully still ahead.

I rate, "We Are Not Such Things" 4 1/2 of 5 stars. I was provided an ARC for my honest review.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful and troubling story. This will stay with me for a long time. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a fascinating and complicated subject, and it took tremendous effort even if it fell short in certain ways.
I'm also reminded of this quote from Trevor Noah: "Apartheid in South Africa was brutally honest. There was no beating around the bush. They told us what the system was about. They were proud of what the system had put in place. And the goal of that system was to keep black people, and people of color whether it was Indian or any other race that wasn't white, was to keep them oppressed. But the brutal honesty of that system is what helped the country move forward. In that no one could deny that it existed. No one could deny that it had been created as such. And when I came to America, I've come to realize that the toughest thing that the United States faces is just the acknowledgement of it existing. That is the hardest thing. You're still in a place where people don't even acknowledge that these systems exist."

[Kalyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I won't spoil what Justine van der Leun discovers in her search for what actually happened in Guguletu, I do think I can say that the truth feels ephemeral throughout the book. It made me wonder to what extent we can ever know a place, particularly one where we are a transplant, a non-local. Like the author, I'm also an expat in South Africa, and this is a place that feels so layered with competing narratives, you can feel dizzy trying to parse what can be called the truth. "We Are Not Such Things" explored competing truths, sometimes with the cooperation and often without of the various actors.

Given the personal and public dual natures of the events that unfolded, the author is to be commended for seeking to balance her search for understanding with a cautious respect for those most damaged by the death of Amy Biehl. It's not a simple act, but I believe that the author acted with integrity, not always easy in investigative works such as this.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tremendous amount of research went into writing this book. I applaud the author for her diligence and seeking out the truth. I learned a great deal about South Africa, it's politics, and apartheid. I hope we have seen some permanent change since Mandela's reign.

[Angie Reisetter · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the first chapter of this remarkable book, van der Leun describes the arc of the story that she set out to tell. It starts in 1993 with Amy Biehl (she's a white American Fulbright scholar in Cape Town) and her death at the hands of an angry mob in a black township. Four young men were eventually convicted for her murder and sent to prison. Five years later, they were released as part of the Truth and Reconciliation process after Mandela was elected. Amy's parents established a foundation in her honor and eventually came to forgive, form relationships with, and ultimately hire two of those young men to work with their foundation. It's a remarkable story of forgiveness. But then, as the chapter closes, she tells us that not all is as it seems.

And she's right. An American transplant in South Africa, she has spent roughly four years chasing down people who were there on the street that day, trying to get an accurate picture of what actually happened. She tries to find official records, which seem to have disappeared from police archives, and tour a prison to which she is denied access. She interviews and befriends those involved in the action and those who knew people involved. She researches the history of race in South Africa starting with the arrivals of white colonialists and the legacy of slavery, apartheid, and the current ANC regime. It seems that everyone has a different story to tell, except the ones that had been rehearsed for court appearances, and those stories are most likely not true at all. She concludes that there is no Truth, but only many truths that need to be told.

Her central thesis about truth is absolutely on-target. The degree to which the eye-witness accounts differ is breathtaking. Witnesses closest to the convicted men (and the men themselves) cannot even agree on whether these men were at the riot. The perception of the Amy Biehl foundation and its purpose and its activities vary widely, as do, on a larger scale, the perceptions of the South African government, poverty, race, and gender (Amy's original cause, women's rights, seems to have been lost in the ensuing 20 years). The narrative is sweeping and disorganized because real life is sweeping and disorganized. The author cannot categorize characters as a novelist would, and cannot simplify the story as a memoirist would, telling only one point of view and passing that off as the truth. The result is a convincing portrait of the truth and reconciliation as very much a work in progress in a modern and deeply flawed South Africa.

I think that the degree to which this research debunks the recited narrative of this internationally known story is overstated, though. The author has unearthed a tangled web of half truths behind that main story, but the scaffolding of the message itself, of apartheid and oppression and bloody rage and startling forgiveness and friendship, is unbroken. Yes, that story is oversimplified, but it still contains a great deal of truth. This book fills in the holes in that story, with all its broken strands and powerlessness and confusion. Near the end of the story, I feel like van der Leun has lost her spirit, has taken the shards of the story left in her hand and thrown them to the wind, wondering what it all means. Part of her disappointment, I think, comes from the complicated nature of her personal relationships with the main characters in this story -- she particularly regrets losing the friendship of Linda Biehl, Amy's mother. I was left with the feeling that she had lost her way a bit and needed a little more time and/or distance to truly bring the strands together one last time at the end, as incongruous as they were.

None of this changes the fact that this book is an amazing feat, an engrossing read. While she is sorting out this story, van der Leun is also getting to know her new country, adapting to the lifestyle she lives there as a privileged white woman and the cultural implications that carries. Every page is rich with insights, if only we knew how to interpret them.

I got a copy to review from Net Galley.

[Candy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is marketed as being along the vein of the podcast, Serial. Actually, I had a very hard time trying to make that connection. The book loses focus fairly often, and if the story told wasn’t so engrossing, I would have stopped reading. The author makes statements early about what she would find later, but nothing is settled and no further “truth” is exposed. Also, she searches for someone she calls a missing piece, and it makes no connection whatsoever to Amy’s murder.

I believed the focus of the story would be Amy Biehl, a white American, who was brutally attacked and murdered by a black mob in South Africa on August 25, 1993, at the end of apartheid. The author had recently moved to South Africa, and became engrossed with Amy’s story. She spent the next four years researching and writing the twists and turns she encountered in her search for the truth. Were the convicted killers really innocent? From that point, we receive a rich history lesson of how things were under apartheid, and how South Africa still struggles with divisiveness, reconciliation and forgiveness, and remains a very troubled country. While it certainly was interesting and eye-opening, the book lost its way and is less about Amy’s story than it is of Amy’s killers and South Africa’s complex society, in the distant past, during apartheid and today. As I said, the book was incredibly eye-opening, it was just not the direction I thought it was going to head. Also, Amy’s and her parent’s stories were just glossed over.

The book has many themes: racism, classism within each race, poverty, politics, injustice, apathy and, for Amy’s parents, forgiveness for her daughter’s killers who later received amnesty. I thought that would be the most notable part of this story, as her parents set-up a foundation in Amy’s memory, and employ their daughter’s killers at the foundation, yet it is never explored. In addition, Amy’s mother, Nancy, is described with a bit of disdain throughout the book, and I felt like it was a petty jealousy on the author’s part.

There was also a disjointed feel to the writing and the author describes people and places in such minute detail, you start to lose focus at times. There is also a strange dichotomy in the author’s portrayal of herself. On one hand she chastises the white and privileged for their attitudes, on the other she talks about importing her dog’s food and makes the admission that she consciously ducks her head to avoid the beggar in her neighborhood when she hears his crutches coming.

If nothing else, the book is thought-provoking and will perhaps spur me on to read more of South Africa’s struggles.

https://candysplanet.wordpress.com