Moffie

by André Carl van der Merwe

To quote the"From a very young age Nicholas van der Swart realises he is different. Try as he may, he cannot live up to the macho image expected of him by his family, by his heritage.At the age of 19 he is conscripted into the South African army and finds his every sensibility offended by a system close to its demise, and yet still in full force.Author André Carl van der Merwe transports the reader into this young man’s world with evocative realism - sometimes heart-rending, sometimes with humour, always with brush strokes of hope.This is a long overdue story about the emotional and physical suffering endured by countless young men."

Genres: Fiction, Gay, LGBT, South Africa, Historical Fiction, Africa, Queer

314 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2006

Reviews

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I avoided this book for a long time, and never understood why. Until I bought it on a whim recently.

Firstly because of the title. To most the word conjures up jest. And whilst my friends & I often throw it around as a joke ourselves, it remains a word associated with hatred, accusation and dehumanisation.

Secondly because of the subject matter. As far back as I can remember, a parent has been telling me / warning me that one day I would land up in the army. That it was the only way I'd achieve any kind of respect. And like the narrator: to never shame the family. I lived in terror of conscription. I heard many horror stories and could not fathom why my family was keen to send me to the army when it was associated with such negativity as well. I did a song & dance of epic proportions in my head when conscription finally came to an end whilst still in high school.

For these reasons the book was at times cathartic. But this well written novel rises above its simple subject and discusses much more. With more effect and grace than many other similar novels. A simple example is the heart wrenching character of Dylan. What would I have done in his circumstance? How would I have coped in that time? On the one hand I fear I may have made similar choices. On the other is the important lesson that the narrator hints at: perhaps life's hardships happen for a reason. It sounds clichéd in that what hurts us, makes us stronger. But without those hardships, what coping mechanisms have we developed? Yet another reason to embrace one's past and not wallow in self pity. Dylan reminded me of a family member who died in the war, whose history is steeped in suspicion and whispered conversations that in themselves rarely occur. I still don't have the full picture and but I strongly suspect this book has helped to fill in a few gaps.

On the subject of prejudice, it boggles my mind when I hear gay men and women emitting racial hatred. Do they think they would be living the life they have today in this country if not for the breakdown of the previous regime? With all the prejudice they themselves have had to endure, how can it be justified to continue the legacy of hate, hurt & prejudice. Which is part of why this novel is so important. In history we learn not only our past, but how we rose above it, and perhaps hint at how we can continue to improve... and to heal.

May the Dylan's of his past world find only peace and harmony in Grace. I shall remember them in my prayers.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/t...

http://www.africanewsfeatures.com/Cur...

http://sadf.sentinelprojects.com/1mil...

[Andrew H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moffie was first published in 2006. Much like the film Beau Travail, which merges homoerotic militarism with choreographed dance sequences, Moffie went down a dance and film route: it became a dance performance in 2012 and a film in 2019. The novel, however, is a much more complex affair than either of those other art forms. (In the film, lovers are condensed into one lover figure and the dance does not reflect the multiple time layerings of the novel). The novel's author was 45-46 when he wrote Moffie and this is the main narrative voice that a reader hears, the plain, mature style of Nicholas van der Swart. (The narrator's surname is chosen with full irony for he is pro-Black in apartheid South Africa). The story begins in 1981, with Nicholas being conscripted into the army -- a military machine at war with Angolan Marxists. As his story is told, flashbacks occur to childhood and events that describe Nicholas' growing awareness of being a moffie, a weak, gay male. Much of the novel demonstrates how gay men, in the military, are anything but weak; and it is this prejudice (preserved in the modern usage of gay as lame, thin, poor quality) that Van der Merwe sets out to revise. The narrator's voice adds a further level of complexity (to mature Nicholas, military Nicholas, and childhood Nicholas) by including teenage diary entries that are based on the author's own diaries: also, words from the fictitious diaries of Dylan, a soldier with whom Nicholas has a sublimated lover affair. (The novel, in some respects, is a roman a clef).

The novel goes much further than the film into definitions of gay life. Nicholas' friend, Malcolm, becomes a voice for the gay underground: there are descriptions of gay clubs in South Africa. But the novel's real focus is the connection between the army and its recruits, how homophobia is enshrined in patriarchy, how modern warfare pursues a masculinity that is founded on sexual fear, and how it aims to dehumanise male bonding (unlike that of the Spartans and Ancient Greeks in general). Van der Merwe writes with brutal honesty, be prepared for raw language in English and Afrikaans, yet does not lose the sensitivity that exists between Nicholas and his friends. Moffie is much more than another coming out novel. It is an investigation into male love, one that includes friendship, brotherhood and trust (a line developed from Nicholas's love for his dead brother, the frank Frank), imagination, physicality, and hero-worship.

The problem with the novel rests with its complexity: there are so many threads that the narrative drive is lost (at times) and the ending cannot pull them all together; unlike the film, which is one tight string that ignores the terrifying relationship between Nicholas and his bullying, abusive father.

It is a shame that the novel is hard to find in paper -- a good copy costs around £80. The £5.58 Kindle cost is a bargain price for an important and intelligent novel.

[Sequelguerrier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every now and again you hit on a book, that may not be especially well written but that just touches a nerve. Moffie by André Carl van der Merwe is such a book. And yes, I won't hide it caught my eye because of the cover. A young man in uniform; you don't really expect me not to pick that up and enquire further, do you?

To get the negative out of the way, the flashbacks drive me nuts and, apart from one or two seem not nearly well motivated. Apart from that, the story is touching in its ultimate message of strength and hope. Moffie is clearly autobiographical with a middle aged van der Merwe looking back to his eighties youth and compulsory national service in the South African Defence Forces. Van de Merwe says the characters' families don't correspond to reality and one feels it is said to protect him (and them) from any back-lash because the narrator, Nicholas, is burdened with a thoroughly unsympathetic bunch of parents and assorted uncles aunts and nephews. One can only hope that van der Merwe's crowd are indeed different. Somehow I doubt it since it doesn't seem they were much help to him when he went through a real life difficult time recently. I think the jacket blurb captures things quite well without giving too much away:

What struck me is the sheer brutality of South African Boer society in the sixties, seventies and eighties. And of course the Defence Forces crystallised that brutality and sanctioned it. For a young man to have come through that he was scarred whether he was gay or not and the book rings particularly true at the end when Nicholas/André writes: 'There are nights when I wake up from dreaming about the army - about conversations, acquaintances and emotions that emerge from somewhere deep in my unconscious. They wake in me a sense of longing that lingers for that whole day and leaves me slightly confused. How it is possible to have hated a time so much and then to discover that somewhere inside, one is yearning for certain aspects of it?
My only explanation is that when one has an experience that is so traumatic, it knits itself into your very fibre while you are raw and ripped open. Then, when there is a really good moment, it can be so incredibly fine that it surpasses all other, because of the acute contrast.'

[Nicolas Chinardet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although a page turner it was also in some ways a difficult read. As a gay man who's been through the National Service experience (though in France and without suffering anything like what Nicholas' goes through), the book brought back many memories. The corruption of the system based on rank seems a constant in the army. "Little hitlers" having acquired a little power and unlikely to get much higher in their career, trying to make themselves feel important by spreading that power as much as possible. The setting, that of training soldiers, is also propicious to abuse. It's a fine line between toughening a man ready for combat and sadism. The experience of growing up gay was also quite resonnant for me though the hero's circumstances are quite different from mine.

A non-South-African audience might feel that the book doesn't give enough context to the political and social situation in which it is set and the field of characters in the army seems unduly narrow and under-explored but I'm very glad I got to read this book and would certainly recommend it.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. About a gay teenager in 1970's South Africa who has to join the army and take part in the Angolan/South African border war (of which I knew nothing!). Brutal and homophobic experiences, but he survives the ordeal. It also delves into his background and the awful way he was treated by his father when growing up. Based on the author's diaries and memories, but as a novel.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

After watching the film I decided to go back and re-read the book, even though I just read it about 10 months ago. When watching it, I knew the film was different, but I couldn't remember how. The plots are quite different but the movie definitely catches the feel of the novel. So much so, that I saw the book in a different light and ended up liking it better on the second read.

[Francois · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me it was difficult to break through to the personal redemption at the end pages of the book, but it is certainly worth it. The scenes of defiant desire come as much needed relief, the stories of love being a way to cling to hope. The violence of apartheid military conscription is laid bare in its brutality, even upon those who were meant to propagate its continuation. Gay men found themselves as enemies at the very heart of the Afrikaner nationalist ideology, their sensibilities markedly labelled as a threat. The shock, aversion and hormone treatment of homosexuals in Ward 22 at 1 Military Hospital, Voortrekkerhoogte is something I did not know about, which reveals even worse accounts upon further reading. This book, which at times reads as an open wound, is an account of keeping one’s dignity in a collective psyche that has went so far astray. In its essence the book is about the possibility of strength and resistance in the face of adversity, but also about how a spirit can be corrupted and broken. This story needs to be told and read in order for humanity to never return here again.

PS: The book bears much less resemblance to the script of the 2019 film than I expected. The book and film stand on their own.

[Nancy Carbajal · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a story! Thank you Dumbledore for the gift. I'm exhausted and have not lead the life this man has. Fictional, but based in part what Andre van der Merwe himself has had to face as a homosexual, or Moffie as the hateful term used by Africaners. Christopher comes from a home were cruelty is a way of life and the term "Moffie" as a threat used against him...in other words, NEVER BE ONE. Its standard that young men must do their duty to the state and serve in the military for their country, I cant even begin to try and put into words the cruelty they face, plus the hardship if one is different. As the story goes along, you are not only witness to what Christopher is up against, but the friends he loves and fellow servicemen. This is set when apartheid is still a fact and Christopher is a gentle soul, not believing in the government set up in his country but still doing his duty and training, trying never to fail, all the while the system and leaders try and make it impossible for him to go on. He does so using his hatred as fuel not to let them win. The hatred is just too real to comprehend, its always there and the sad fact that it will never go away. But Christopher does exceed expectations and as each chapter goes on, you wonder when the break will happen, if it does. van Der Merwe has a lovely way with words and structure, its wonderful to read a book so filled with horrible things but written in a way that makes you admire the writer and writing so much.

[Cerisaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is horrifying, shocking, and heartbreaking, filled with brutality, abuse and violence, and yet has passages of transcendent beauty and eroticism. The very worst of toxic masculinity comes up against life affirming and life changing comradeship, male bonding and gay love of sublime tenderness.

I wanted to read the book before seeing the film adaptation, so it will be interesting to see how they compare. Apartheid South Africa wasn't so very long ago. I'm old enough to have joined the consumer boycott that helped to bring it down, finally. Black Africans were treated appallingly by the regime but weren't its only victims. Gay people were 'the enemy within'. The novel is autobiographical, with the fierce intensity of lived, survived experience.

Read and weep, and reflect that though the world today is very far from perfect, South Africa not a beacon of hope despite Black majority rule, we have made progress in attitudes towards and legal protection for LGBTQ people.

[Coenraad · Rating 4 out of 5]

One learns a lot about a vital episode of South African history. Although this does not make the text unique, the perspective of a young gay man amidst all the brutality is unusual. Well written. The loss of the fifth star is based on my feeling that the ending, especially meetings with characters towards the end who had effectively vanished from the narrative much earlier, is too manipulated towards satisfying the reader who had to follow the narrator through his travails. I hope the writer will follow this debut with something as searing.

[Márcio · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book caused so many impressions that I am still processing them to write a review. I hope you return in some days to read it if you have come by right now.

[Ian Walden · Rating 4 out of 5]

The movie led me to the book and I’m so happy to have read this. So much pride and admiration for the gay men in generations past who survived so much. To those that survived so much but did not get the chance to live an authentic life, like Dylan, your lives mattered, and we are better for it.

Favorite quotes:

“I think we’ve fallen out of life. No we’ve dropped completely out of time.”

“If we could understand why people do things, absolutely comprehend, then there would be no malice. I guess that would make it easier to forgive, but not necessarily easier to live with.”

“He is like a hill I walk past and don’t notice, it’s top obscured by clouds. Then one day I am suddenly intrigued, and I start climbing. When I get to the mist, I realize it is a fog of prejudice and beyond it is the larger green of a previously unnoticed mountain - I have judged a mountain by its foothill.”

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

(revised, not changed, to correct spelling and grammar - August 2024).

I had to give this novel five stars because it is a fine novel and speaks so powerfully of what hate and fear do to corrupt, twist and make ugly those with power, even if it only is the power to abuse those utterly without power. A brilliant novel that is thrilling in the way it deals with raw physicality and emotions. Both are laid bare through torture, abuse and suffering and the way the novel strips through reader's defences was at times so visceral that I wondered if I could ever finish it but I knew that I would be ashamed if I didn't. It is also a tale told with strength and vigour and while emotionally draining, the stories of bullying and abuse are horrifying, but it is much more than an anthology of abuses suffered, emotions neglected and prejudiced indifference triumphant. It is a tale of survival but it is also a warning that the greatest perversions are the direct result of morally upright people's willingness to provide a warrant for hatred.

I don't like using reviews to make emotive and obvious comparisons and I hate the possibility that my emotions to over do things but, when an author can be accused of 'grooming' simply by mentioning to a group of 10/11 year-olds that someone was 'gay', or a political candidate can be demonized because her father was a 'Marxist', then you are on an ugly road to despicable acts.

This novel is a tale of a dominant culture that revels in its narrow mindedness and ability to reject anything that falls outside it's limited moral compass, but has the authority-backed up by the power of theocratic state apparatus-to restrict and punish anyone or anything it does not like, but it is much more. as well; a portrait of people and a society which you come to understand but never excuse or sympathise with.

It is splendid tale of a difficult time politically for the countries of southern Africa but also for the people living there as they grappled with not just political change but changes on a personal level and how to be honest. There are very upsetting scenes but the novel is more than a tale of bad times overcome, it is the story of an individual and how he suffers and faces up to that suffering as
both a challenge to his physical endurance and his powers emotional resistance as well.

Perhaps I found the novel so powerful because I realise how far I am away from being such a person.

[Max Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

That there is a wheel that turns although we can not always see it and maybe wants it to go faster. Also that to love and be loved should never be taken for granted and treasured above all things.

[Marius Plessis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every gay man in South Africa needs to read this book. Right now.

[Fenriz Angelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am of the thought that sometimes the book you pick up is the one you need most at the time. Like some subconscious magnetic attraction.

That happened with this one. I was scrolling and scrolling through my library trying to find something catching my attention until i hit Moffie and remembered i got it based on the movie i watched some time ago and thought "well, why not?". Fortunately, this book surprised me in a good way and has become one of my favorites.

Moffie is half autobiography half historical fiction about the experiences of Nicholas van der Swart, a young white gay South African in the 80's, who since childhood didn't meet his father's expectations of what a man is supposed to be, and his rebellion as an adolescent fractured their relationship completely. Rendering the compulsory 24 month militaty draft as the only chance for Nicholas to be made a real man. However, this brutal period of his life will make him grow and learn a lot about himself, faith, love, and hope, thus separating himself further from their family, specially his father.

There's been a lot of coming of age books written by gay men over the years, and while Nicholas' experiences might overlap with someone's of western countries were being gay has been criminalized before, it's worth learning from all the voices around the world and indeed find similarities with the struggles faced by all. It makes you think how fucked up is human's tendency to strip anyone different of their right to just be.

Might not be perfectly written, especially the beginning and ending, but Nicholas' journey was very gripping, heartwrenching, heart-warming, relatable at times, his sheer defiance admirable, and just... overall this book has a lot of heart that sadly is missed in the film, though i understand it would have been very difficult to adapt the complexity of this journey.

Really recommended.

[Gerbrand · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Poofter, queer, moffie, sissy, homo, pansy, trassie - how those words scare me. I’m so terrified of being ‘discovered’ that I obsess about it. Being a homo gives everybody the license to persecute one. If I’m found out my life will be ruined. I MUST AT ALL COST, KEEP THIS A SECRET.”

André van der Merwe is geboren in 1961 in Zuid-Afrika. Dit verhaal is gebaseerd op de dagboeken die hij als tiener en tijdens zijn 2-jarige dienstplicht bijhield. Gepubliceerd in 2006, 25 jaar na dato. Het verhaal speelt zich af tijdens de dienstplicht en zijn stationering in oorlogsgebied. Ik moest het even opzoeken, maar tussen 1966 en 1989 was er de Zuid-Afrikaanse grensoorlog. Zuid-Afrika was toen de koloniale bezetter van wat nu Namibië en Angola heet. Het verhaal wordt gelardeerd met jeugdherinneringen waarin zijn conservatieve familie een hoofdrol speelt.

Door de intensiteit van het verhaal voel je dat hier niet zomaar sprake is van fictie. Het is emotioneel en indringend. Met als onderlaag een intens verlangen. Een verlangen dat in de maatschappij en zeker in het leger niet werd getolereerd. En het geloof hielp helaas ook niet mee.

“Dearest, dearest, Lord… please, please, please … I beg of you, God, make me straight.’ I wait, fighting the tears and clamping my hands as I try to impress on God the earnestness of my prayer. ‘God this is not what I want. It is not my choice. I beg you; I beg you make me straight. I believe that you can, Lord, I believe it. Please, my Holy Father, I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.’”

De film schijnt nog heftiger te zijn. Ik laat het voorlopig bij het boek. 7/10.

[Taylor Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't often rate books as 5 stars but this is truly a masterpiece. Having grown up gay and religious this book spoke to many issues I faced. It has both some of the most beautiful and insightful passages I've read in years combined with the humor and relatability that keep it so grounded and light. My only complaint is that it ended too abruptly.

[Anton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm sorry not being able to review this book - it's been a very emotional read. I could so identify with the story, it's as if I am the main character in this story. What I can say though, is you're going to miss out on a whole lot of emotions if you don't read it. This definitely goes on my list of read-again-and-again.

[willowdog]

Excellent read. Cried, although I cry at alot of things. Facinating South Africa Nambia history...what a horror story.

[Marnich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sou graag die boek in Afrikaans wou lees.
Die skryf styl is asof dit vertaal is van Afrikaans na Engels.
Maar skrywer sê dit is 'n Engelse boek en geen Afrikaanse weergawe beskikbaar nie

[Allan van der Heiden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow the tears keep rolling

Being about 2-4 years younger than the author growing up with the same dilemma I can remember the joy when we were told that the draft was cancelled. I never went through the pain and torture of “Basic” but I steeled myself for it all through highscool without realising what I was doing. Cutting emotions so I could keep out the snide comments that hurt so much. The pain of not accepting why I liked sport practice where we played without shirts the scary showered reactions I’d get afterwards.

This book just makes so much sense of what was all bad in a government that was so wrong on many levels and has never come back and apologised for its torment and terror.

In truth I was never a South African having nationalised there as a kid but it’s something I still do not hold dear to me and keep my 1st nationality as my pride because of these pains I was forced to go through. This book was amazing in giving voice to so many of the feelings I felt,suppressed and yearned for. I’m glad I can read it now 20 years later when I’m bolder and stronger. Twenty year old me would never have picked up this book. Now I’ll cherish every part I’ve read and re-read cause it moved me that I felt the exact same. A great book and I hope the author writes the inferred sequel about their next step of life and the issues that that brought too.

[Jim Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I often had to remind myself while reading “Moffie” that this was not a science fiction novel. I kept thinking of Orwell’s 1984 where love is forbidden and endless wars are waged with “terrorists.” In Nick’s world, everyone who is different lives in fear of being discovered and sent away to mental hospitals or to army work camps or is humiliated into committing suicide. This is a place where one’s own parents and religion are enemies. This is a society built on a brutal masculinity that celebrates violence, and is founded on the repression of other human beings--A nightmare world that was reality for millions of South Africans before the end of Apartheid. Moffie is a difficult read—at times it almost becomes torture porn with its detailed descriptions of the cruelties conscripts experience in the SA army. Yet there are moments of great beauty and tenderness in the novel as well. As the protagonist slowly comes to terms with his sexuality, he manages to find other men in the army who resist conforming and retain their humanity. Nick even finds that he is able to bear the strains better because he is gay and has already experienced the daily humiliation that is standard in the army. He becomes strong enough to realize who he truly is, despite, or perhaps because of, the two awful years he spends in the military.

[Lenschen Greyling · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an amazing, and in many ways, also a very difficult read. I don’t know if I chose the right time to read it during my final year at university because of the mental and emotional space you need to hold for this novel.

BUT REGARDLESS, amazing, touching, heartbreaking, gut wrenching, awe-inspiring.

I cried many a time, particularly when it came to the sections about Dylan. In many ways, in the past, I could relate to him. vdM’s respect and awe of this friend doesn’t go unnoticed in the novel. At all. He writes about Dylan so beautifully and with a certain poised prose, one can only write when one has come across something that’s once-in-a-lifetime.

This book was a long read because of how difficult it was to read at times BUT! I don’t regret it for one second. Every queer person in SA needs to read this book immediately.

It is so so so educational and taught me things I never knew about the army, about apartheid, about homophobia, about religion in SA.

It hits very close to home though. Very very very close but I’m glad I read it and I got to experience Nick and Ethan and Oscar and Dylan. They are characters I will remember for a long time.

[Markel · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I despise myself for not breaking down for my friend, as a last token of my love and admiration".

Superbly written. It's such a feat to manage balancing the crudeness of a border war and apartheid with the exhilaration of self-discovery and first love. But this novel masters it all. Being a foreigner and having recently lived in South Africa and Namibia, I felt homesick of the grandness and emptiness of the landscapes so gorgeously described by the author. The English/Afrikaner dichotomy is also depicted in a way I had never been able to fully comprehend while residing in the countries, but this book really helped with the basics. The scenes of literal torture narrated were harrowing but perfectly compensated by the (not so) light-hearted nature of N's and Malcom's satisfying friendship. Dylan was paid very fair tribute until the very last part of the novel, which perhaps was completely unnecessary (there were enough hints already), as was the epilogue. And maybe the army was a little too unrealistically packed with moffies? Or maybe not. I am at least grateful that we were spared from visiting Ward 22 for long -it would have been unbearable.

[Sven van der Vlist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moffie (African for a gay man), is a story about Nicholas van der Zwart, who is recruited into the South African Defence Forces. The story takes place in the 80's, a time in which gay people are not accepted in South Africa. In fact, the army sends them to Ward 22, an army medical clinic in which gay people and the mentally ill are "treated".

Nicholas is gay, his father doesn't know but thinks he is not a "real man" and thus calls him a moffie. The story uses multiple timelines in which we get to know the backstory of Nicholas and his family and his story in the SADF unfolds. In the SADF he gets in (heartbreaking) relationships with other conscripts. We learn about his (deep) friendship with Dylan Stassen and Malcolm, the horror of being in the SADF, the level of disrespect to conscripts and what it means to always have to hide who you are.

The book takes a longer timespan than the film with the same name. Even if you've watched the film, this book is a really good read from start to finish. Where in the film some roles are collapsed into one, the book takes time to deepen these roles. It also spans a larger timeline with more backstory around Nicholas and his childhood.

[Richard van Rensburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harrowing. This word succinctly sums up this novel. Although the novel is written in quite a gritty style, this accurately matches the traumatic contents of the story. This is an important novel because it tackles the issue of homosexuality within the apartheid regime and how that identity had to be carefully negotiated and hidden within the defence force.

I found myself physically disgusted at the kinds of real experiences this novel brings to the surface from days of national service. Although it tested my emotional tolerance to its limits, I am grateful for this novel that makes speakable the unspeakable struggles that came along with being a gay closeted man specifically during this traumatic time of South Africa’s history.

May all those who suffered, and perhaps even continue to suffer, as a result of national service find peace. Let this novel stand as a reminder of the horrors of hatred and how the abuse of power is the ultimate evil.

[Jordan Risebury-Crisp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a raw, sometimes harrowing account of the hardships experienced during South African's National Service in the early 1980s. To make the trials of the narrator, Nick, even harder is the fact that he's gay in a time it was still illegal in the country.

The book is tough going and uncomfortable at times. The gruelling training the recruits are subjected to is conveyed vividly, coupled with random snapshots from Nick's past and the strained (and somewhat abusive) relationship with his father makes the story difficult and a bit confusing to read at times.

This is van der Merwe's first book, loosly based on his own experiences in the army. He doesn't hold back on his description of cruelty and almost torture. He clearly has a lot to get off his chest, almost like a confession and has writen with passion, but I feel the book could have benefited from some stronger, or firmer, editing to make the narrative clearer in places.

[Joyce A. Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are a lot of important issues addressed in this book; however, I just could not stand the author's bombastic, overwritten style. My sense is that he's aiming for artistic and poetic; it's just overdone.
Surprisingly, there's little sense of time or place.....This, though, turns out to be one of the strengths of the book: I couldn't help but think, as I was reading, that I all-too-easily saw the similarities to the current reactionary politics in the US: the rise of the toxicity of white nationalism, with its hyper, violent concept of masculinity; the hypocrisy of the TN governor who advocates a pointless anti-drag queen law, despite the evidence of his himself having, at least once, dressed in drag; the pure hate driving the FL 'don't say gay' law and the frenzy of book banning there.......
So, the book does have that going for it. But the style simply makes this a book I can't really recommend and one that did not resonate.

[Abdulmugheeth Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is for Nicholas, and Malcolm, and Ethan, and the Boksom Boys, and Deon, and anyone who has ever had to endure and fear Ward 22, even for Gerrie, but most of all for Dylan, that I am out and proud! Because even today there are still Dylans and Nicholases and Malcolms and Ethans and Boksom Boys and Deons and Gerries, but atleast if I am out and proud, they won't have to feel the way that Dylan did. Atleast if I am brave and proud enough to be out, they can know that there are ways of being happy, even if those possibilities do not exist for them right now.

A heartbreakingly honest account of how systemic violence and oppression, like that of Apartheid, destroys everyone - even those at the top.