House of Stone

Set in 2007 Zimbabwe, Tshuma’s darkly humorous debut follows Zamani, a 20-something lodger who decides to integrate himself into the lives of his landlords after their teenage son, Bukhosi, vanishes while accompanying Zamani to an anti-Mugabe political rally. As parents Abednego and Agnes search for the teen and emotionally tailspin, Zamani begins calling the duo his surrogate parents and listens to their histories. After plying recovering alcoholic Abednego with booze and drugs over several nights, Zamani learns of the man’s first love, Thandi, as well as Abednego’s involvement in an unsolved murder. The lodger manipulates Agnes into talking, after a drunk Abednego beats her one evening, and hears of his surrogate mother’s own first love, a reverend, and of her arranged marriage to Abednego. Zamani strings his host family along by creating a fake Facebook account for Bukhosi and sending reassuring messages from the boy, all the while working to take Bukhosi’s place in the family’s home—his motivations for which are revealed late in the story. Though the tangents are sometimes overlong, Tshuma’s novel bounces through time and bursts with an epic’s worth of narratives. This is a clever, entertaining novel. (Jan.)