Books › The smell of apples
The smell of apples
First published 1995 · 208 pages
A devastatingly quiet coming-of-age story where a child's naive observations slowly reveal the monstrous rot at the heart of his family and country.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like watching a slow-motion tragedy through the sun-drenched, uncomprehending eyes of a child. The narrative moves at a steady, almost deceptively idyllic pace, immersing you in the sensory details of a 1970s South African boyhood. Yet, a suffocating dread builds beneath the surface. The prose is stark and simple, perfectly capturing an eleven-year-old's earnest voice, which makes the gradual uncovering of profound familial and systemic rot all the more devastating. It is a deeply claustrophobic and haunting experience, designed for readers who appreciate coming-of-age stories that confront the terrifying intersection of personal betrayal and historical atrocity. You will leave this book feeling shattered but profoundly moved by its quiet, ticking-time-bomb execution.
- Mood
- claustrophobic
- dread-soaked
- haunting
- tense
- Tone
- naive
- observant
- unsettling
- earnest
- devastating
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- loss of innocence · complicity and guilt · systemic oppression · corrupted childhood · the rot beneath the surface
- The writing
- Deceptively simple and sensory, utilizing a child's limited perspective to convey devastating adult truths.
- The arc
- Moves from a naive, idyllic childhood observation to a shattering, irreversible awakening to profound betrayal and systemic evil.
- Who it's for
- Readers who appreciate coming-of-age stories that tackle heavy historical and moral complexities through an innocent, uncomprehending narrator.
Content notes
- child sexual abuse
- racism and racial slurs
- apartheid-era violence
- homophobia
- trauma
About the book
The smell of apples is a time bomb of a novel. Set in the bitter twilight of apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s, it is a haunting story narrated by an eleven-year-old child, Marnus Erasmus, who simply and devastatingly records the social turmoil and racial oppression that are destroying his own land. Using his family as a microcosm of the corroding society at large, Marnus tells a troubling tale - of a childhood corrupted, of unexpected sexual defilements, and of an innocence gone awry.
Description from Open Library.
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