Can a white woman write a rich-people satire set in Namibia? Katie Crouch pulls off a delicate balance: an embassy romp with hard postcolonial lessons
Cherie Jones’ debut novel, “How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House,” focuses on the essential workers who make the tourist factory run.
Anxious and at loose ends, Amanda joins forces with Persephone to establish a rhino-protection nonprofit. All the tropes offiction are in place: the white wine-fueled bitchfests, the slapdash school runs, the competitive bake sales. But Crouch is no mommy blogger. It’s fun to watch these real housewives of international diplomacy attempt to cope with a country they don’t understand. They are advised never to go to Katatura, where their cooks and housekeepers all live.
Thus readers know early on that Mark has returned to Namibia in search of Esther — or at least her full name and her fate. Perhaps we should be relieved that he loved her, but it’s eros and not agape that carries Mark through the rest of the book — into a crazyReading the flashback sections, I found it harder and harder to come back to Persephone’s schemes and Amanda’s petty concerns. Esther and her ilk aren’t just crammed into places like Katatura.
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