In the Fifties it was important to please your man. As the twentieth century wore on, it became more important to please yourself …

Anne Perceval thinks she has it all: the dreamboat husband, children, a happy household, and the ideal job. For the twenty-nine years of their marriage Doug is her safety net as she becomes a successful lifestyle journalist and agony aunt in London, writing popular columns for a women’s magazine. But as Doug’s career falters and a return home to South Africa holds an uncertain future, Anne faces new challenges that will test her resolve. When Doug falls ill, the consequences threaten everything she believes and has lived for.

Review: Sue de Groot, Sunday Times Lifestyle 23 August 2015

Women are at their most heroic when protecting their families from harm. But they also have their own identities to forge, and this can clash with familial duty.

Anne Perceval, the hero of Jenny Hobbs’s eighth novel, is ferociously caring as well as ambitious. This warring combination drives a story that begins with Anne’s South African childhood in the 1950s. She meets Doug at university in the ‘60s, a time when women’s horizons were broadening but marriage was still the Done Thing. They marry, move to England, get work, have children, and, after the dismantling of apartheid, move back to South Africa.

During their time in the UK, Doug is a corporate drone whose thwarted hopes and stints of unemployment lead to crippling depression. Meanwhile Anne, under the pen name Annie Butterfield, becomes the most popular food writer and agony aunt of her day.

The compassionate advice Annie dispenses to others lets her down when it comes to her own relationships. The glue of the title refers to an unwavering belief in love, but love can be a difficult beast.

Not that Hobbs is always pondering matters of the heart. The changing role of women in society and the evolution of the media are told through domestic minutiae that become moments of high entertainment.

The world of women’s magazines and the vying demands of career and family are subjects Hobbs knows well. She also has a fine ear for dialogue. Strong supporting characters leap off the page, particularly the housekeepers Euphemia, a queenly Ghanaian who gives marital advice (“Go away next weekend. Make some love”), and the former MI6 spy Budgie, who describes her shortcomings as: “Prone to foul language. Won’t get dressed up. Can’t swim, so shit-scared of rivers.”

There are some very funny scenes and a lot of sex, some of which is also very funny. Anne is a flawed hero often blind to her own faults, but she is written with a warm honesty that makes the reader cheer for her at every turn. The same goes for the rest of the cast. Hobbs’s characters are so real that one can’t help wondering if this book is in some ways autobiographical.

It isn’t. Hobbs, who lives in Franschhoek and recently stepped down as director of the town’s annual literary festival, says: “The trouble with writing novels is that readers always think you’re talking about yourself, and while the timeline and contemporary memories are more or less mine, all the characters are imagined. Budgie just walked into the story and made herself at home, cussing blue murder all the way. I have no idea where she came from, but she grew and grew.”

The power of Hobbs’s tale has nothing to do with its social or geographical location. It cuts to the heart of every woman’s struggle to be whole in a universe intent on fragmenting her, leaving the reader tearful and satisfied while wishing it had gone on longer.

Some critics may question the relevance of a novel about a white South African woman who lives, despite her emotional travails, in a bubble of middle-class privilege. They might as well call Jane Austen irrelevant because no one goes to balls any more.

True Blue Superglue follows their lives from big-dreaming students to strung-out parents to a couple at the end of their tether. It is a love story with a sting in its tale that moves from South Africa to swinging London and back home again. Witty and poignant, Jenny Hobbs’s novel is also a tribute to a life lived as a woman in changing times.

Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary (Michael Joseph London, 1989; Grafton, 1990, Umuzi 2014) deals with the tragic effects of apartheid violence and hatred on young South Africans, and is also a double love story spanning thirty years. Thoughts was a finalist for the 1989 CNA Literary Award, and was published by Econ Verlag in Germany under the title Tief im Süden.

What the back cover says:

“The date is December 1985; the place a village in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, the independent black country surrounded by white South Africa.  Hooded gunmen have come in the night and shot dead a young couple: Rose, a South African teacher, and her coloured husband Jake, a poet turned ANC activist with whom she had been living in exile.  Her mother grieves over the torn bodies while her father rages round the village in a fury of loss. In a series of flashbacks, Rose’s life and her parents’ stormy marriage unfold against the background of the turmoil and agony of recent events in South Africa, dominated by the urgent need to identify with those set apart for their colour.  But, as the local people prepare for the funeral, a ray of hope shines through the darkness.  The white girl and her husband did not die in vain.  There was a survivor of the shooting…  A pulsating first novel from South Africa, Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary is the tragic account of a forbidden love between two people of different races and a lament for the young lives being laid waste in an unhappy country.  Above all, it is a praise song to the South Africans of all races who are trying to build bridges rather than blow them up.”  

The background to Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary

The profoundly tragic photograph which propelled me into writing this first novel appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times on 22 December 1985: Jacqui Quin and her husband Leon Meyer lying dead on a floor, side by side under a bloody sheet.

Tens of thousands of young people were being caught up in our country’s raging turmoil. At that time our older daughters were university students and the youngest had spent her first high school year in one of South Africa’s only two non-segregated schools. I was so appalled by the vision of a young woman like them assassinated in her home, that I kept the cutting and subsequent articles about the funeral in Lesotho. Two weeks later I sat down one evening and started writing this fiction.

My characters are imagined, not based on the people involved, and this is a fictional village. It was the horror of the cross-border raids being planned and executed by shadowy men sent by the Nationalist government, and the terrible toll that monstrous policy was taking on innocent people, that drove me on.

The ANC was still banned and newspapers were censored, though if you read them carefully you could pick up information that slipped through. As a freelance journalist, I knew journalists and writers who told me things they couldn’t write about; I also had friends with connections to the struggle. Nobody at that time could say for certain who was involved in the raids.

As I wrote, the stories of the fictional young couple, Rose and Jake, and Rose’s parents, Sarah and Gordon, became intertwined over the decades between the 50s and the 80s in South Africa. I could not have written them without my experiences as a journalist, particularly working and writing for Thandi, then part of Bona magazine, during the years 1978 to 1982, which took me into the lives and traumas of many black women.

The book took nearly two years to write between other assignments. Michael Joseph published it in 1989, followed by Grafton with the paperback edition in 1990 and translated in Germany in two 1995 editions.

What shook me most about readers’ reactions was the almost universal, ‘But I didn’t know all this was happening in our country!’ It was too easy during those decades not to know, to blind oneself to the realities and not to listen to the voices being raised against injustices.

But we know now. Information about the cross-border raids began to emerge during the 1990s. Here are the details of the killing which inspired Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary as they appeared in newspaper reports, and I give them for two reasons: to tell the story of what really happened, and because atrocities like this must never, never happen again.

The man who led the squad of assassins was Eugene de Kock. A cutting about his trial in the Pretoria Supreme Court dated 17 September 1996 reads:

‘De Kock yesterday gave … vital new evidence about the planning and execution of the raid, launched after then president PW Botha became convinced that Lesotho was harbouring ANC terrorists…

‘Six members of the Vlakplaas unit, led by De Kock, were chosen to attack houses occupied by members of an ANC cell believed to have been involved in the murder of  a policeman in Cape Town… While he and a Warrant-Officer … were attacking one house, two other operatives hit the house in which Jacqui Quin and Leon Meyer lived… When the operative knocked on the front door, Quin opened it and grabbed the barrel of his gun. “He fired the weapon, killing Quin,” De Kock said. They then entered the house and shot Meyer.’

They claimed to have locked the child in a room with a child-minder. De Kock said that on returning to base he phoned the Maseru police to tell them about her. Later news reports are conflicting: one that neighbours found her safe in her cot, and another that, ‘They left the child, still being breastfed, unharmed to crawl in the blood of her parents before she was rescued four hours later.’

Seven people were murdered in the first house: Lulamile Dantile, Nomkhosi Mini, Vivian Mathee, Joseph Mayoli, Makaelane Mohatle, Boemo Tau and Amelia Lesenyeho.

Jacqui Quin’s mother is quoted in a cutting dated 9 May 1996 as asking the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a memorial “so that their story is not forgotten. I want people to remember why they died.”

I hope this book dedicated to Jacqui, while fiction, reminds readers of the sacrifices she and many others made, and of their bravery. Remember.

> Podcast

Reading Matters: 10 Apr 2014: @SueGrantMarshal with Jenny Hobbs @FranLitFest @RandomStruik @JonathanBallPub
Posted to facebook and twitter

Sue Grant-Marshall interviewed author Jenny Hobbs about her first book, Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary, which has just been re-published by Umuzi.
They also discussed the Franchhoek Literary Festival, www.flf.co.za which takes place from 16 to 18 May 2014.

> Download this podcast

(Shortlisted for the 1990 CNA Award)

Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary (Michael Joseph London, 1989; Grafton, 1990, Umuzi 2014) deals with the tragic effects of apartheid violence and hatred on young South Africans, and is also a double love story spanning thirty years. Thoughts was a finalist for the 1989 CNA Literary Award, and was published by Econ Verlag in Germany under the title Tief im Süden.

What the back cover says:

“The date is December 1985; the place a village in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, the independent black country surrounded by white South Africa.  Hooded gunmen have come in the night and shot dead a young couple: Rose, a South African teacher, and her coloured husband Jake, a poet turned ANC activist with whom she had been living in exile.  Her mother grieves over the torn bodies while her father rages round the village in a fury of loss. In a series of flashbacks, Rose’s life and her parents’ stormy marriage unfold against the background of the turmoil and agony of recent events in South Africa, dominated by the urgent need to identify with those set apart for their colour.  But, as the local people prepare for the funeral, a ray of hope shines through the darkness.  The white girl and her husband did not die in vain.  There was a survivor of the shooting…  A pulsating first novel from South Africa, Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary is the tragic account of a forbidden love between two people of different races and a lament for the young lives being laid waste in an unhappy country.  Above all, it is a praise song to the South Africans of all races who are trying to build bridges rather than blow them up.”  

The Sweet-Smelling Jasmine (Michael Joseph, London, 1993; Penguin, London, 1994) moves between the early 50’s and the present.  It centres on an unhappy wife whose new lover encourages her to delve back into the dramatic events of a year in their shared past in a racially mixed town on Natal’s South Coast, when community unrest culminated in rioting and the destruction of a Hindu temple.  Jasmine was submitted by South African librarians for the Irish Impac Award, and published by Econ Verlag in Germany under the title Zeit des Jasmin.

> Longlisted for the 1996 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

What the back cover says:

“The Sweet-Smelling Jasmine is a rich and multi-layered novel, set in present-day and 1950s South Africa.  It opens with Isabel in the arms of her unnamed lover, a man from the brief exciting year in her youth when she discovered a whole new world in the Natal sugar-mill town of Two Rivers.  A world which became a powder keg of racial tension and religious fervour, and finally blew up when a Hindu temple stood in the way of progress.  What happened to the gutsy, inquisitive young Isabel, who is now an unconfident woman straining against the shackles of a moribund marriage and much-loved but demanding grown-up children?  Who were Finn and Stella, Mr Reddy and Opal, Kesaval and Asha, and the frenzied Sister Kathleen?  And which of the four boys from Two Rivers has she met again and fallen in love with? At her lover’s urging, Isabel resolves to untangle the threads of her life – and perhaps gain enough self-respect to free herself from her carping husband – by writing about the events she experienced as a teenager and about the people she shared them with.  As she remembers the series of incidents that led up to the fatal explosion of violence on a Good Friday evening, Isabel comes to terms with a part of herself that for years has been repressed, and in doing so, she finds the key that will change her life.”

The Telling of Angus Quain (Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 1997) is the account of an unusual friendship between a Johannesburg business tycoon and a woman historian, set largely in the men’s club where he lives.  When he is diagnosed as having terminal cancer, he begins to tell her about his less-than-savoury past and her life takes a very different turn. Quain was shortlisted for the 1998 M-Net Book Prize and was also chosen for submission for the Irish Impac Award. It was published by Econ Verlag in Germany under the title Der Stern von Johannesburg.

(Shortlisted for the 1998 M-Net Book Prize, English; Longlisted for the 1999 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award)

What the back cover says:

“The Telling of Angus Quain is a sharply observed novel of contemporary Johannesburg, featuring Angus Quain’s rise from railwayman’s son to executive glory and his unusual friendship with Faith Dobermann, a lonely writer/historian who begins to realise that he is not who he seems…  In the corporate world where power equals money, ‘King’ Quain reigns supreme until he is sabotaged by cancer and his carefully constructed secret lives begin to unravel.  Faith’s curiosity about him grows into a quest for the truth that takes her from a Jeppe striptease joint along the devious byways of financial corruption to a startling confrontation between the dying man and his rivals in fraud, witnessed by the people he has spent a paradoxical lifetime helping. This is the compelling story of a brilliant but flawed man and his last, redeeming relationship with an independent younger woman: a story of our time, cast with people whose voices are all too familiar and set against the minefield of modern city living.”

Kitchen Boy (Umuzi, 2011) is a novel about a young war hero and rugby Springbok who makes a mistake that dogs him all his life, and about the long-term effects of war on his family, war comrades, friends and associates, mostly set in Natal (as it then was) and POW camps.

What the back cover says:

“Luck matters. Life is chancy. An oval ball can bounce any way. Springbok legend, celebrated war hero, thriving businessman – that was JJ Kitching, known to all as Kitchen Boy. His was a life as large as a sports stadium, as thrilling as baling out of a burning war plane. Now he lies dead in his coffin in a Durban cathedral and his life is relived as funeral goers remember a glowing Natal childhood, the thunder of the rugby field, the joys and sorrows of family. But at the core of the man remained, to the end, the memory of WWII and how it could reduce even the bravest of men.”

> Podcast

Reading Matters – 24 March 2011 with Sue Grant-Marshall – Guest – Jenny Hobbs -author and co-founder of the Franschhoek Literary Festival (FLF)
Sue Grant-Marshall -chatted to Jenny Hobbs author about her latest book “Kitchen Boy” and the fifth Franschhoek Literary Festival which will take place from 13 to 15 May 2011.

> To access the podcast.

1. Go to Radio Today’s website at www.1485.org.za
2. Enter the website
3. Select the Podcast button (Top Row -fourth from the left)
4. Scroll down (alphabetically) to required podcast

The Miracle of Crocodile Flats (Umuzi, 2012) is an affectionate satire set in a platteland village. When Ma-Jesu appears to a young schoolgirl, the sighting gives rise to an onslaught of curious pilgrims, mercenary journalists and even a representative of the Vatican, and inspires varying reactions from the townsfolk, with any taking advantage of the business opportunity presented. What makes the apparition significant is that this Mary is “brown like us”. With wry humour, the author exposes the hypocrisy, corruption and absurdity inherent in formalised religion, balancing this with flashes of its more benign side, such as its ability to unite and bring solace.

What the back covers says:

Godforsaken Crocodile Flats is the last place on earth where you’d expect any marvel, so when Sweetness Moloi believes she saw the Virgin Mary there – all nice and brown like real people – who’s going to believe her? But lo, the good news spreads like wildfire, and soon all hell breaks loose. Every sect and faction want in on the action, there is fierce competition for the elusive glory, and hordes of journalists, pilgrims, and the just plain curious flock the troublesome village. In this small corner of the Rainbow Nation, so desperately in need of a miracle, jealousy tumbles over hyprocisy to end up – miraculously – in a state of grace.

> Podcast

Reading Matters – 22 March 2012 – Sue Grant-Marshall (Host): Guest, Jenny Hobbs about her new book The Miracle of Crocodile Flats.
Sue Grant-Marshall chatted to Jenny Hobbs about her new book The Miracle of Crocodile Flats and about the Franschhoek Literary festival.

1. Go to Radio Today’s website at www.1485.org.za
2. Enter the website
3. Select the Podcast button (Top Row -fourth from the left)
4. Scroll down (alphabetically) to required podcast

Napoleon Bones (Umuzi, March 2013) Inspector Rusty Gordon partners police dog Napoleon Bones in Team One A-R (All-Rescues), and this crime-thriller spoof set in Cape Town details their early career, told from the feisty Bones’s point of view. It is satire packed with local flavour, humour and skilfully drawn characters and landscapes.

> Podcast

Reading Matters – 2 May 2013 – Sue Grant-Marshall with Jenny Hobbs on #NapoleonBones; @RandomStruik; #CapeTown has been podcast.

> Download this podcast

Video Dreams (Penguin, Johannesburg, 1995) is a novel  for teenagers, the story of a girl who slides into a life of drugs and crime but is redeemed when she is nursed back to health after an accident by a group of powerful black women who have established their own village in the Drakensberg.  It was published by Econ Verlag in Germany under the title Roter Horizont.

What the back cover says:

“I roared into the next action-packed episode of my life without a cent to my name … clutching a complete stranger in black leathers.”  What is Sylvie leaving behind?  A father who scorns her, school that means nothing to her and drugs that have nearly killed her.  She’s taking along her video dreams, though; the wonderful world in her imagination that’s so much richer than real life. Ahead of her lies an amazing cross-country journey with an armed robber on a motor bike.  Then – maybe – salvation at the end of the road.”

(Don Nelson, 1978)

What the back cover says:

“Fresh from the pages of  Darling magazine comes South Africa’s own sweetheart, Blossom. For five years this Joeys chick has been delighting readers with unexpurgated accounts of life in Bez Valley: who could ever forget Auntie Vilma and Ouma, the ole man and my boet, Lorna and Charmaine or Bok-Bok, the perennial boyfriend? To cheers of ‘Vrystaat!’ from all the fans, here they are at last together in one book.”