cover image Where the Trees Weep

Where the Trees Weep

Dolores Walshe, Delores Walshe. Wolfhound Press (IE), $9.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-86327-319-3

Running through the metaphorical foliage of this first novel by Irish poet Walshe is an anguished story of poverty, police terror and a divided family in South Africa. The tale is driven by the quest of Emma Harford, a British journalist, for redemption in the anti-apartheid struggle. Emma, a full-fledged masochist, is tormented for having terminated a pregnancy by a ``colored'' activist, Thulatu, who attacks her with the venom of a right-to-life fanatic. ``You're a murderer, a cold-blooded whore,'' he rages. An American priest, Dick Carruther, who gives Emma lodging in a squatters' shantytown outside Johannesburg, comes to appreciate her convoluted crusades. They make love after he is beaten by a white security force, but Emma finds no solace: ``Tearing the child out by its roots had emptied her. Her body was a womb where no tree grew.'' By the novel's end, after a slew of killings, a suicide, mass demonstrations, overwrought rhetoric and the violent deaths of both of her lovers, Emma gives birth to Dick's child in London, with Thulatu's wealthy white mother presiding. ``Now push, child!'' the old woman says. And Emma, an excruciatingly good girl, complies. (Aug.)