The Devil's Chimney (Paperback)

Narrated by the alcoholic Connie, The Devil's Chimney interweaves the passionate and heartbreaking stories of two women, each trying to take control of their lives, in a dusty South African village at the beginning and end of the twentieth century.
Living near the haunted Cango Caves, Connie has become obsessed by the story of an aristocratic English woman, Beatrice Chapman, who came to the village with her husband, Mr Henry, in 1910. When he disappears into the veld, Beatrice decides to master the art of ostrich farming and turns to her neighbour, Mr Jacobs - the Ostrich King - for advice. Their impassioned friendship awakens Beatrice's sexuality and unleashes a bloody and terrifying chain of events which leads, inexorably, back to the Cango Caves.
'In The Devil's Chimney, South Africa is for the first time seen through the lens of magic realism, and the effect is exhilarating. A novel that bristles with creative energy.'
- JM Cotzee
'A remarkable first novel, with an intensity of imagination that lights up the dark places behind the world and the history we think we know.'
- Andre Brink