At what point do you choose what you are already born into? Gordimer explores this puzzle in her densely lyrical novel, spinning out a fictional life for a fictional daughter of a fictional white anti-apartheid activist in 1970s South Africa. The daughter's ambivalence about having been born into a family committed to the cause, her clear-eyed assessments of the tensions and fault lines within the movement, and her memories of what happens to a family constantly struggling against society are what make this book worth it. But often the truth that this book has to tell is plastered over with Gordimer's impressionist language. I'm guessing the choice of styles is supposed to dramatize the conflict between a unique and individualized interiority (expressed through the romantic linguistic style) and a social movement that can't take such individualism into account. But -- it tried my patience.