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{"id":1562,"date":"2019-04-14T09:45:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T09:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/?p=1562"},"modified":"2019-04-14T11:03:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T11:03:55","slug":"lone-star-review-house-stone-novuyo-rosa-tshuma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/?p=1562&lang=ar","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Review: HOUSE OF STONE by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma"},"content":{"rendered":"

House of Stone <\/em>is quickly and evenly paced until it begins coursing toward the denouement, flinging jaw-dropping twists amidst the factional, fractional, bloody birth of Zimbabwe, with mordant wit and keen characterization.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cAlways, you must be looking back over your shoulder, to see what history is busy plotting for your future.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Zamani is \u201ca man on a mission \u2026 to remake the past, and a wish to fashion all that has been into being and becoming.\u201d He is a border in the home of Abednego and Agnes Mlambo in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Unbeknownst to the Mlambos, Zamani grew up in the house they now occupy, his childhood marred by secrets which were followed by revelations that threaten to unhinge his unstable personality. Zamani sees his chance to ingratiate himself with the couple when their son, Bukhosi, goes missing. Zamani assists in the searches for the teenage Bukhosi, and when Abednego refers to him as his \u201csurrogate son\u201d it is the \u201cfruit of a long labor.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>As Zamani plies Abednego with Johnnie Walker Blue and Agnes with sympathy, he pries their family histories from them and discovers that his appropriation of a new family hasn\u2019t corrected his history or acquired for him a future, but instead has anchored him in, and allowed a fuller expression of, exactly that which he wished to deny and destroy. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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House of Stone <\/em>is the debut novel of Houston\u2019s (by way of Zimbabwe) Novuyo Rosa Tshuma<\/a>, whose short fiction collection, Shadows<\/em>, won the 2014 Herman Charles Bosman Prize for the best literary work in English. A work of remarkable imagination, House of Stone <\/em>is quickly and evenly paced until it begins coursing toward the denouement, flinging jaw-dropping twists amidst the factional, fractional, bloody birth of Zimbabwe, with mordant wit and keen characterization. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Who gets to tell whose story? House of Stone <\/em>is told in Zamani\u2019s first-person narration, but he is envious, manipulative, cruel, and ambitious, which begs the question: Is Zamani a reliable narrator? How can we trust Abednego\u2019s account since he\u2019s an alcoholic? Or Agnes\u2019s version because she\u2019s having visions from the Holy Ghost? The government issues an official version, but \u201cthose who know [the truth] are the kind of inerudite folk who, aside from being asked to pose for Red Cross and WHO newsletter photos, aren\u2019t thought to possess that much-needed epistemological savoir faire.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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One person\u2019s freedom fighter is another person\u2019s terrorist. Would-be revolutionaries discover the bourgeois nature of their idealism when confronted with the genuine article. \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as truth \u2026 truth is optics. And there are so many options out there.\u201d Is anyone to be trusted? How about you? Can you be trusted? Who among us is a reliable narrator? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The cadences of Tshuma\u2019s prose are most assertive when she\u2019s toing and froing in time, often from one paragraph to the next, the singsong give-and-take between the \u201cballsy exploits of Death\u201d and Zamani\u2019s \u201carti-farce.\u201d Tshuma\u2019s appreciation of mischief and her delight in language is evident. This account of Bukhosi\u2019s birth in the bush, attended by a village woman and the sudden appearance of a lion, is a prime example:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c…my surrogate father tried to scream but couldn\u2019t find his voice, my inamorata found her voice and screamed, the woman bared her teeth and barked, the beast bared its gums and snarled, the baby was coming, the Khoi San woman was hissing, Thandi was groaning, the lion was growling, she spread her legs, it licked its nose, she fisted her hands, it shook its mane, she began to cry, and off it sauntered.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Tshuma presents us with a history lesson in the form of these individual lives, demonstrating the folly of denying that the personal is political. Following personal revolutions into political corruptions, Tshuma juxtaposes war narratives with the real thing, warning of the vile, dangerous mixture of religion and nationalism, as well as the risks of nostalgia, that siren song of a glorious, illusory past (\u201cMake Rhodesia Great Again!\u201d) which claims the powers of myth when a people cannot imagine any future they could want for themselves. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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After all of this, we feel Tshuma\u2019s steadfast compassion. We feel her hopeful ambition for her characters as they do what they think they must in the chaos and brutality of our darkest endeavors and attempt to rewrite history, re-inventing themselves in the aftermaths.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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