The Indoor Boy

Sher, South African by birth, is both an award-winning actor in Britain and the author of a well-received novel, Middlepost , and the nonfiction The Year of the King . His second novel is a mordantly witty but dangerously off-putting narrative about a thoroughly debauched character whose pursuit of pleasure has ironic consequences. Leon Lipschitz is a Jew from South Africa who lives in London on money that comes from his racist father's business. Despite his being more or less a ``moffie'' (homosexual), Leon has married a likable English teacher and social activist. He himself is far from appealing; he is corpulent, frequently in a drug or alcohol haze, and complacently self-indulgent. He speaks in a hilarious and unique mixture of Yiddish and Afrikaans, and spends most of his time either watching porn videos or in the hands of ``escorts'' hired by the hour for masturbatory amusements. Leon's downfall occurs when he suddenly develops a passionate attraction to a beautiful South African man called Gertjie, a relationship that leads to a Grand Guignol conclusion. As an allegory of South Africa's racial strife, the book is audacious and provocative. Sher's risk in portraying so vulgar a protagonist is not so successful, however. While the novel is fast-paced and darkly amusing, it is ultimately uninvolving, perhaps because it's hard to feel much for the characters. (May)