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The Snake in the Signal Box
‘He marvelled at their sense of balance, their beautiful dark skin, their
erect bodies and their smiles’
‘We must never forget how our women and children died in
the British concentration camps’
‘Are you aware that in 1913 all Asiatic people were classified as Undesirables?’
‘Prue turned and kissed him. Her mouth soft and warm, saying, “Trams
are romantic things, aren’t they.”
In 1919, among indentured Indians, defeated Zulus and Boers still smarting from a Second Boer War defeat and the suppression of another rebellion in 1914, Donald Kirkwood, a Scottish ex-soldier, starts a remote Zululand cotton farm. With little knowledge of agriculture, he and his settler neighbours must cope with malaria, sleeping sickness, racial tensions and Spanish Flu.
As the influences of Eugenics, Nationalism and Bolshevism seep into ex-colonial society he attends an unsettling séance in Durban and meets a pretty librarian. This first novel in the Kirkwood trilogy reflects with wit and accuracy the milieu of the years immediately after the First World War in Natal and the enchantment of falling in love.
erect bodies and their smiles’
‘We must never forget how our women and children died in
the British concentration camps’
‘Are you aware that in 1913 all Asiatic people were classified as Undesirables?’
‘Prue turned and kissed him. Her mouth soft and warm, saying, “Trams
are romantic things, aren’t they.”
In 1919, among indentured Indians, defeated Zulus and Boers still smarting from a Second Boer War defeat and the suppression of another rebellion in 1914, Donald Kirkwood, a Scottish ex-soldier, starts a remote Zululand cotton farm. With little knowledge of agriculture, he and his settler neighbours must cope with malaria, sleeping sickness, racial tensions and Spanish Flu.
As the influences of Eugenics, Nationalism and Bolshevism seep into ex-colonial society he attends an unsettling séance in Durban and meets a pretty librarian. This first novel in the Kirkwood trilogy reflects with wit and accuracy the milieu of the years immediately after the First World War in Natal and the enchantment of falling in love.
428 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 1, 2017
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About the author
William Paterson
142 booksLibrarian note:
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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
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