Disgrace ~ J M Coetzee

I only wish that this novel was longer than the 215 pages that it is.

Set in post-apartheid South Africa, it is a very human look at how quickly one can fall from grace and the effects of the anger that has continued from apartheid.

Lucy, the protagonists daughter who lives away from the city, understands the ways of the blacks and how it is she who must fit in with them, but even this does not spare her from the terrible assault on herself and her father David Lurie.  After David's resignation  from his University position (due to an indiscretion with a student) he stays with Lucy to escape the fall-out.  There he spends his time helping on her small farm and assisting in an animal clinic, but the vicious assault changes everything.

David does not understand his daughter's attitude towards what has happened to them, the local blacks and even herself, but he is from another generation.  However, towards the end of the novel he finds himself willing to try before he loses everything important in his life.

I think you would have had to experience life under apartheid and it's fallout to fully understand the range of emotions portrayed in his novel, but Coetzee writes it very simply and very well. I found it hard to put down.