'One of the best and weirdest novels I have read in a long while... There are traces of J M Coetzee and Graham Greene but Damon Galgut is a true original.' Geoff Dyer

'A truly remarkable novel, steeped in contemporary history, yet at the same time transcending it. I was enthralled by its intensity and the immediacy of every small twist and turn of the story' Andre Brink

When Laurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital posting, Frank is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not - young, optimistic and full of new schemes. The two become uneasy friends, while the rest of the staff in the deserted hospital view Laurence with a mixture of awe and mistrust.
The town beyond the hospital is also coping with new arrivals, and the return of old faces. The brigadier - a self-fashioned dictator from apartheid days - is rumoured still to be alive. And down at Mama's place, a group of soldiers have moved in with their malign commandant, a man Frank has met before and is keen to avoid. Laurence wants to help - but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last.