Angus Quain is an eminent businessman and philanthropist, a man who hoisted himself from the wrong side of the tracks to become one of the most powerful men in the financial area. Long-divorced, he befriends Faith Dobermann and on every Saturday for 15 years the two meet for lunch at his club, until the day Angus announces that he has cancer. It is only then, in what will be the last year of his life, that Faith uncovers the many facets of Angus Quain. She begins to unpick the fabric of his life, revealing strands of silken brilliance but also slubs of corruption and fraud. She reveals a seam of corporate malfeasance, but also learns of Angus’s secret generosity. She is hurt to discover that she occupies only one compartment of many in his carefully designed life and sets out to uncover the others. Out of these compartments dance a marvellous array of characters: illegitimate children, dusky strippers, gay avocado farmers and a government minister who is also a traditional healer. Looming large are the denizens of big business and their questionable deals, an element of the story that culminates in Angus Quain finally clearing his conscience – and in so doing, fingering some of his fellow sharks. The Telling of Angus Quain is a contemporary story about contemporary Johannesburg. It is mercifully about people, not politics – and those people are real, rounded and believable.
