Persistence of Memory by Tony Eprile was one of the more interesting books I’ve read in a while. Tony Eprile is a South African writer and the story takes place in the “gilded cages” of the Jewish community in Johannesburg.

Cover

The story is divided into 3 sections: the childhood of the main character, Paul Sweetbread; his service in the army during the secret wars in Angola and Namibia; and his testimony in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee about the war atrocities. Paul is an overweight, food obsessed, sensitive boy, who has an unusual condition of a photographic memory (it’s more than photographic - for example - if he meets someone - he will even remember the stitching of the buttons on the shirt) . Paul spends his entire life as an underdog but I found him to be a sympathetic and strong character because he manages to navigate life without a support system.

Woven throughout the book is the central theme of how upper-middle class whites in South Africa acted as if apartheid did not even exist. They literally built “fortresses” around their homes and tried to pretend that the squalid lives of their fellow black countrymen did/does not even exist. Eprile manages to hit home with this theme in a non-judgmental, matter of fact way. Rather he uses Paul’s thoughts and actions to demonstrate the complexities of the situation and uses his character development as the means to show how things can change in South Africa.

Another reason that I enjoyed this book was because it was on a subject that I know little to nothing about. The writing was intelligent, witty and humorous and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read something different for a change.