THE COMRADE’S WIFE

Author: Barbara Bosell

Publisher: Jacana Media (2024)

Reviewer: Cynthia Marais

Tall, dark and handsome Neill turns out to be less than perfect in this novel that gradually draws Anita, the protagonist, into his life, including flying her to Bloemfontein to meet Mother.

Anita is a Cape Town academic in a white, male dominated department, where she is told to her face that she was hired as window-dressing, and that this does not absolve her from publishing articles – the reason her position became available in the first place. Fortunately, she is part of a group of three friends that meet every so often, and this makes her life bearable. Her friends decide that she needs more fun in her life and urge her to join a dating site. Here she meets the attractive, charming and wealthy Neill, an ex-comrade, close to his (all female) family in Bloemfontein.

Anita can’t believe how wonderful he seems and brings her research skills to bear in checking out his personal history, credit-worthiness, standing, political truths, and the veracity of everything he tells her. He comes up spotless. Then he invites her on a weekend to meet his family. Everybody likes her, tells her they are glad he’s met her, sings his praises, and tells her that he’s had a difficult childhood as a child soldier and freedom fighter; they are immensely proud of him.
This sets the background for the story of their courtship and marriage.

Neill is a rising politician, well regarded, principled, and passionate about his chosen career. He becomes her devoted husband and seems utterly committed to his party, his duty, his family and, it appears, her.

Yet Neill often leaves Anita hanging: he doesn’t take her along on trips when he could; she often can’t get hold of him; he doesn’t call her when she expects him to; he abandons her for work at critical moments, and he resents her questioning him about this.

Set in South Africa between 2016 and 2018 when Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, launched an investigation into state capture after receiving formal complaints from, amongst others Stanislaus Muyebe of the Dominican Order of Southern Africa and the leader of the opposition. The first report of her investigation, entitled State of Capture, caused a major scandal. The commission found that multiple incidents of state capture took place within South African government departments and state-owned enterprises during the presidency of Jacob Zuma, and that senior officials routinely broke the law. Whether these events inform the closing sections of the book, or whether it was a matter of precognition and/or synchronicity, there are strong parallels between the events played out in the activities of Neill and what was happening in South Africa at the time.

Overall, a good read, filled with interesting personalities, betrayals and difficult situations. Anita is an imperfect, well-drawn character with all the flaws and personal shortcomings one would expect in a real person. She rings true, but for me, Neill’s personality remains elusive and, to the end, he continues to be more of a persona than a person.