Frankie and Stankie

Dinah and her sister Lisa are growing up in South Africa in the fifties - a time of dreadful changes. Dinah is weedy and doesn't much like eating. Lisa is an angel-face who likes chocolate sprinkles on bread. It is at school that Dinah first learns about racism. 'What would you rather have - a native girl or a koelie to make your sandwiches?' a little girl asks. Dinah doesn't know what she's talking about, because it's her dad who makes her sandwiches. As we follow Dinah from childhood, through adolescence and marriage, to voluntary exile in London, we get a vivid glimpse of one of the darker passages of twentieth century history. Barbara Trapido's writing has always possessed a painful edge beneath a dazzling surface of style and wit and in this, her new novel, she breathtakingly juggles light and shadow as only she knows how. Seductive, funny, heartbreaking - this is pure Trapido.