A Slim, Green Silence

Constance West is dead. She is floating above her hometown of Scheepersdorp, unsure how long it has been since she died, since the cancer took her. Beneath her are all the people she ever loved: her younger sister Sylvia, her domestic worker Princess, her good friend Alwyn, Bart, her neighbour, Harry, her guardian, her former lover Ivor, and her child, Marianne. Connie doesn't know why she is back in Scheepersdorp in this spirit form. 'All I can tell you,' says the Boatman, who transports her there, 'is you will know this thing when you see it. And you must be finished by half past six.'

A Slim, Green Silence is a journey through Connie's past as she tries to understand why she is back home, and for what purpose. Not just a story about death, this is a tale about living and loving, about friendship and motherhood, loss and hope. Most of all, it is about ordinary people, and their attempts to make sense of a sometimes nonsensical world.