Litnet

Title: Son of a whore
Author: Herman Lategan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781776391240

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For those few hours that you read the book, and hopefully afterwards as well, you feel less mad and less alone.

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Hoerkind, the Afrikaans version of Son of a whore, was a best-seller nationwide. Why would the memoir of a journalist and columnist prove to be so popular?

Curiosity will kill only so many cats and sell so many books. Yes, he is a known and controversial figure; yes, a few famous people are named and sometimes shamed; and yes, the subject matter is often gut-wrenching, as well as from the gutter.

The memoir’s strength and popularity lie in that it vocalises the universal longing in all of us – to belong, to be loved – and the primal fear that it won’t be met. Son of a whore shows what happens when a father leaves, a mother can’t cope, and the darkness of sexual abuse, physical violence and alcoholism steps in as a new and evil guardian.

How do you cope with the rejection of both your parents? How do you deal with the outsider motif that still runs through your life like an unbreakable thread?

The book starts with the death of a pet that was supposed to be his childhood companion. Thus the tone is set for the life story of a man who would often find love, a home, a companion – only to have it ripped out from under his feet the minute he trusted that this time, all would be well.

I was subjected to loss early in my life, something I would have to get used to. Surviving became a way of living. The white cat died, but in its place, my shadow, the black dog, was born.

With depression as his only constant companion, his journey starts. While his book reads partly like a nostalgic trip down memory lane, the warning is there:

They move silently among us; they are people you wouldn’t expect to be evil. But there they are, lurking, salivating. Our streets were not as safe as people claim when they hanker after the good old days of apartheid. 

His childhood is a miserable mixture of pure bliss the one minute, and heartache the next. Happy, sun-drenched memories of his mother and their Kloof Street days are juxtaposed with starker recollections.

Eventually, my grandmother left the farm and moved into a nearby village. I remember the heat, loneliness, gravel roads, red sandstorms, but specifically the bleakness. A landscape stripped of its flesh, like bone. My grandmother always had a sad face.

At this point – having read both the Afrikaans and English versions – it is important to note that it is not a verbatim et literatim translation. For example, the Afrikaans reads as follows:

Daar was pampoene op haar sinkdak. Sy was nie meer op die plaas nie en het in die dorp gewoon. Ek onthou hitte, grondpaaie en verlatenheid. Rooi sand, bergwinde, eensaamheid.

I found that in the English translation, new thoughts were often added as if the author had had some time to think (and indeed he had) and now saw his past even more clearly. Therefore, I would recommend that bilingual readers read both books, as each gives a different, if not deeper, perspective on the inner workings of the author’s mind.

I feel that the Afrikaans version is often more poetic, whereas the English version is starker. For example, in his description of a dining room in a boarding house, he writes:

A room waiting for company. A place where one could sit and weep quietly, should the fancy take you.

The Afrikaans version reads:

Daar was ’n somber en swygende eetkamer waar dit ewigdurend gevoel het asof die aandskemerte net-net gedaal het.

One thing the author did add in the English translation, which I found unnecessary, was a fairly defensive paragraph addressing accusations that had arisen with the Afrikaans memoir, that he was name-dropping. There is no need to defend your life, your choices or what you decide to include – it is your memoir, after all. To me, the accusation of name-dropping reeks of jealousy. I feel that should have been edited out.

When I wrote my second memoir in Afrikaans, a reviewer criticised my family life. I was told that if you write about your personal life, you are free game. Are you? Perhaps. However, just as readers have the right to comment on the author’s life choices, the author has the right to ignore them.

Particularly poignant in this memoir is his ambiguous love/hate relationship with his molester. It is typical of a victim of abuse to revert to old, trained patterns when meeting with the abuser years later – his honesty about what happened to him as a child and also about his own dark demons will definitely help other people with similar issues.

For that is the beauty of a survivor memoir, which this is: you might never know the author, although you think you do, but you do know the demons that he speaks of. For those few hours that you read the book, and hopefully afterwards as well, you feel less mad and less alone.

See also:

Book review: Hoerkind by Herman Lategan is "a rare privilege"

Hoerkind deur Herman Lategan: ’n onderhoud met die skrywer

’n Eerlike en heerlike reis: Hoerkind deur Herman Lategan

Persverklaring: Hoerkind deur Herman Lategan nou verhoogstuk

Hoerkind by die Toyota US Woordfees: ’n onderhoud met Margit Meyer-Rödenbeck

LitNet | STAND: Teaterresensie van Hoerkind (weergawe 1)