Rosie Rowell, Almost Grace. Hot Key Books , 1 June 2015. 204pp., $16.95 (pbk), ISBN 9782472401275
This is a quite complex coming-of-age novel, set in South Africa. Grace has just finished school and can’t quite see a place for herself in the world. There seems to be little in her life that she is able to control but her body image is one of them. As one of her friends describes it, she simply ‘stops eating’. Her mother and the school counsellor are both concerned about her but, until she sees the need to change, they can do little for her.
The catalyst for change comes when Grace and some of her friend go to a beach house for a week following their end-of-year final exams. While there, Grace meets a rather mysterious man called Spook, for whom she feels a great attraction. However, as she reflects, he’s almost old enough to be her father (35 to her 18). Grace has never known her father, so there is a psychological tie here with her search for identity. However, Spook is not what he seems and is a much more multi-faceted character than he first appears; not even his name is real. Nonetheless, after a strange and frightening road trip Grace undertakes (increasingly unwillingly) with him, it is he who makes the one remark that allows her to see the way forward to change. She agrees to undertake the course for emotionally disturbed teenagers which her mother and school counsellor wanted her to attend. When they suggested it, and her mother gave her an ultimatum about it, she refused. It is very much in keeping with her character as a strong and determined young woman, that she needed to make the decision herself.
It is not her close friend Louisa who comes to rescue Grace when she is stuck in the desert with Spook, but one of the other girls whom Grace has always rather despised. The incident also requires Grace to reassess her judgements of some of the other girls who show a loyalty to her which she simply didn’t expect. Grace is a character who is, for the reader (and her friends) by turns endearing, infuriating, even pathetic – but always interesting. All the characters who move around her, some only fleetingly, are well-drawn and convincing. The reader understands the menace of some, the warmth of others, the tension when relationships go wrong.
Post-apartheid South Africa is an important characteristic and background to the novel. Black and white teenagers form part of Grace’s friendship group; the threat of violence seems ever-present and when the girls find Spook has a gun, they are frightened but not altogether surprised. Grace is very much a city girl and is both overwhelmed and entranced by the countryside she and Spook travel through and particularly by the vast night sky. This has a profound effect on her as she reflects on her actions – including what might be read as a suicide attempt. The countryside through which Grace travels is described lyrically and evocatively.
There is no quick fix solution in the ending of the novel. Grace does not return from her holiday – with all its ups and downs and even danger – ‘cured’. But she does return ready to change, although she recognises that she will always be what she describes as a ‘searcher’, looking always to make meaning of her life.
In the author’s note at the end of the book, Rosie Rowell tells the reader that some of Grace’s experiences are Rosie’s own, and that she attended a programme similar to the one Grace attends. It was there that a staff member said the one thing which gave her a new perspective on life and indeed changed the way she saw herself, a salutary reminder of how lives are interconnected and how one person can change another.
reviewed by Margot Hillel
