The Madams (Paperback)

Thandi loves her life. She loves her cute son Hintsa, her witty husband Mandla, her comfortably challenging work with the tourism board, and her best friends Nosizwe and Lauren. But she has to admit - it's tough being Superwoman in South Africa today. Try being the perfect traditional wife and African mother at home, the perfect promotable black woman at work, and the perfect foil for her 'Benetton' friends (one black and Xhosa, one white and English)! Thandi admits defeat and decides she needs that great South African bourgeois accessory: a maid. And since she doesn't have the heart to boss about a 'sister' in her own home, she decides it must be a white maid. Marita joining the household seems to disrupt the comfortable space Thandi, Siz and Lauren have settled into. The secrets of the three women's lives are dramatically exposed and they are forced to confront their assumptions about relationships, history and each other.