Book Review: The Magistrate of Gower

A masterful second novel, The Magistrate of Gower, woos the reader with beautiful language and subtle undercurrents.

It starts off slowly with the understated monotony of a British prisoner of war camp for Boer soldiers in Ceylon. Before you know it you are captivated, by the skill of this novelist, into the life story of Henry Buchanan Vos, farm boy, young soldier, disgraced prisoner of war, lawyer and then magistrate.

Claire Robertson tickles the reader with South African history that brings with it a sense of shame or regret for barely concealed, but deep prejudices and middle class snobbery. There are the “Native Affairs” laws. There is a Jewish family persecuted for being different.

There is nationalist trek Boer fervour that tries to reinvent history.

The story, most of which is set in the fictional town of Gower like many others in the interior, evenly spaced all the way to the Vaal, spans the years from the Boer war ’til the closing years of the second world war.

In this small gentile town, Henry builds himself a careful life under a veil of respectability. The magistrate, along with the dominee and the chemist, is a pillar of society – almost above reproach and the reader is alarmed as the veil threatens to unravel in a tumble of emotions and dark desire.

In the fateful court case the reader is on tenterhooks at impending and damaging scandal, as the vulnerable Henry, determined “not to be cowed into corruption”, seems set on indulging his “idiot luxury of honour”.

A truly compelling read with much food for thought.

– RS