Set on a farm in the Eastern Cape, and taking place over one day, the
novel is a wrought meditation on motherhood and our destructive relationship to
the Earth.
A former geneticist, Kate is now an award-winning maker of organic cheese. She
relies on the farm's routine to hold steady as her day teeters on a knife's edge: her
estranged daughter is in London, waiting for her conjoined twins to survive
surgery, while keeping her own mother away. Meanwhile, Kate's employee Nosisi's
son is undergoing initiation. Forbidden to have contact with him during this
traditional passage into the world of manhood, she anxiously awaits his return.