Behind every successful man - Zukiswa Wanner

This is a book every woman should read, no, every black South African woman should read...okay, its a book every (black) woman should read.

It embraces the desires, fantasies and aspiration of every woman, be thy the fancy independent ones or the desperate housewives.

In fact, it does remind me of them soap operas, where you get a woman who has to find herself against all odds.

In the case of Nobantu, she absolutely has to find herself in the dark matrix that is Andile, her brilliant but extremely, blindly concieted husband.

Reading it, and I am sure a lot of us felt the same, while I was reading it, I kept feeling frustrated on her behalf. Every time Andile did something or said something, I cringed. Like when he has to find space in his busy schedule to 'accomodate' Nobantu. Or when he says, 'she's just a housewife' and does not see anything wrong with it. Or, when he threatens her with divorce if she dared carry on with her dreams of starting a baby/teenage clothes label...

But because of its melodramatic style, these moments are momentary, fleeting, especially because you know she will eventually come out of it stronger. You know because 'it is that kind of novel'. The painful moments are short - lived. More focus is placed on Nobantu's desire to succeed, and very little on any self-pity or reflection or regret. Can only happen in a novel such as this.

I always thought novelists who dwelt on pain loved to make their readers suffer. Part of why I loved, and am sure a lot of people loved Behind was precisely because it did not seek to cause pain, but to teach, and people reading it are expected to learn a thing or two.

Its interrogation, not just of the BEE world, black success, money and glamour, but of the place of the woman in this new South African world continues to fascinate. It offers us a glimpse into a world that we would otherwise not have been able to enter. And in writing the narrative, Zukiswa simply deletes other things.

For instance, why is it that I cannot remember a single white character in this novel. Oh, maybe the Jewish guy who co-owned the law firm with Anant's father (Ackerman). We only catch a glimpse of him though, as we hurry along to more interestig things. However, even in that small glimpse, we are allowed to scorn at this character's love for money above simple things such as loyalty.

Domestic violence: As usual, Wanner takes advantage of the narrative space by inserting the issue of domestic violence. Perhaps one could question the manner in which this violence is presented as the problem of the working class. However, to her credit, Wanner introduces the reader to the many layers of violence that take place on society against the woman. Andile is abusive in every sense of the word. But Wanner has also elsewhere engaged with middle class domestic violence in The Madams, where Lauren's husband Mark beat her to a stain (Marechera still jazzes me).

Short of it, Behind is just as interesting and fascinating and one can apply several readings to this 187 paged book.