The novel, set in South Africa during the 1970s, relates the story of an Afrikaans family through the eyes of the narrator, Marnus Erasmus. Marnus is a child of the white, brutal culture and the system of the apartheid. He lives a seemingly happy life, influenced by his father, who is a general in the South African army. Against a background of racial prejudices, the reader gets to know the reality of the Erasmus family, including the sexual molestation of Marnus's best friend (Frikkie) by his father and an love-affair between his mother and a visiting Chilean general. Although I found the novel's shocking ending less than credible, the gradual uncovering of the enormous pressures on this family gives this novel a brooding tension.Mark Behr has created a lyrical and memorable child narrator, along with a really great background-story.