Reading Matters (week 30) July 21 2026

What would you do if your child was murdered? Probably not visit the killer in prison for 21 years, taking him food and giving him a reason to live.

Yet that’s what author and writing coach, Sally Cranswick, has Heather, her protagonist do, in Of All Things, we Need Hope (Modjaji Books). In the process Heather loses her husband, son, grandchildren, job… they’re appalled by her behaviour. Sounds grim, sounds fascinating. It is.

Elizabeth Strout, she of My name is Lucy Barton fame has in her 11th novel depicted the life of popular, gentle high school teacher, Artie Dam (his pupils call him Damn-dam) so exquisitely that we can feel and see him.  The Things we Never Say (Penguin) naturally has a secret at its heart. It’ll surprise you but, more than that, you won’t be able to get it out of your mind for days, if not weeks.

If you enjoy Australian author, Peter Carey, as much as I do, you’ll be beguiled by His Illegal Self (Faber and Faber / Random House) for it’s about a little boy, deserted by his famous hippie outlaw parents. Shut up, almost imprisoned by his grandmother, his life changes completely and suddenly one day as he is whisked off into a strange world. Riveting.

Debut author, Samantha Keller, raised in SA but living in the USA, has written a love story to our country as her characters in The Light Remains (Modjajai Books) grow up on a Lowveld farm hiding a dark secret. Two sisters whose childhood is intertwined with a boy’s, become entangled in a devastating request. Again, I’ll ask, what would you do in a similar situation?

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall