Hum If You Don't Know the Words

You re doing so well, Cat called a few seconds later once she d turned back and noticed my progress.

Spurred on by her clapping and encouragement, I hopped even faster, not noticing until it was too late that a lace on one of my takkies had come loose. It tripped me up just as I cleared the last square and brought me crashing down knee-first, my skin scraped raw on the rough concrete. I cried out, first in alarm and then in pain, and it was this noise that brought my mother s flip-flops clacking into my line of vision. Her shadow fell over me.

Oh for goodness sake, not again. My mother reached down and yanked me up. You re so clumsy. I don t know where you get it from. She tsked as I raised my bleeding knee so she could see.

Cat was crouched next to me, wincing at the sight of the gravel imbedded in the wound. Tears started to prickle, but I knew I had to stop their relentless progression quickly or suffer my mother s displeasure.

I m fine. It s fine. I forced a watery smile and gingerly stood up.

Oh, Robin, my mother sighed. You re not going to cry, are you? You know how ugly you are when you cry. She crossed her eyes and screwed up her face comically to illustrate her point and I forced the giggle she was looking for.

I m not going to cry, I said.  Crying in the driveway in plain sight of the neighbours would be an unforgiveable offense; my mother was very concerned with what other people thought and expected me to be as well.

Good girl. She smiled and kissed me on the top of my head as a reward for my bravery.

There was no time to savour the praise. The trill of the ringing phone cut through the morning and just like that, one of the last tender moments my mother and I would ever share was over. She bli

our needs for love.  Hum If You Don t Know the Wordstakes us into the human heart s wiliness as it attempts to survive the frontal attack of racism. While the attack is a sin, the response is wondrous and wounding and an illustration of the resiliency that can transcend the color of a person s skin. Rebecca Wells, author of The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Bianca Marais s stunning debut offers an evocative and thought-provoking look at the unlikely relationship between two South Africans. Set against a backdrop of apartheid-era South Africa, Marais illuminates the experiences of both black and white South Africans during one of the bloodiest periods in the country s history and gives us an emotionally powerful and historically important story about forgiveness, love and redemption. Tara Conklin, author of The House Girl

Bianca Marais s compelling debut novel is a heartrending coming-of-age tale that not only illuminates the horrors of apartheid South Africa but also speaks with unmistakable relevance to the racism of our own times. Jennifer Chiaverini, author of Mrs. Lincoln s Dressmaker and Fates and Traitors

Beautiful and tragic, intimate and sweeping, Hum If You Don t Know the Words is a gorgeous debut novel. You don t read this story, you live it. Bianca Marais creates characters with such love and compassion they nearly walk off the page. Tish Cohen, bestselling author of Town House and The Truth About Delilah Blue

I read this book in a gallop, compelled to discover the intertwined fates of its tragic heroine, Beauty Mbali, and her young orphaned charge. Hum If You Don't Know the Words is an exciting and compassionate novel about a period of devastating cruelty in South African history. With passion and grace Marais makes the political personal and the personal intimate. Meira Cook, author of Nightwatching and The House on Sugarbush Road

Bianca Marais parts the curtain on an unexpected view of Apartheid-era South Africa in this gutsy, surprising, and richly imagined tale. It will be a long time before the reader forgets the novel s compelling characters, and the tremendous determination, yearning, and humanity with which they navigate complex emotional landscapes in their intersecting quests for connection, family, and justice. Ania Szado, bestselling author of Studio Saint-Ex
 
Expertly crafted, both lyrical and gripping, with some truly poignant moments especially pertaining to parenthood. Emma Hooper, author of Etta and Otto and Russell and James

Bianca Marais has written a haunting and moving novel of Apartheid South Africa that held me in its thrall from beginning to end. Against a backdrop of legislated racism, Marais brilliantly entwines two disparate voices in a searing story of love, loss and recovery. Masterful and memorable. Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour

A classic loss-of-innocence story with a striking social backdrop Well-researched and dosed with humor and humility. Seattle Times