PHOEBE AND NIO
Published by Hippogriff Press 1987No price given
Johannesburg author EM MacPhail’s delicate portrait of her main character Nio is
unforgettable, and can easily stand alongside the currently popular author Alexandra
Fuller’ recreation of her childhood in “Don’t Let the Dogs Bark Tonight”. Mrs
MacPhail’s excellent book deserves to reach a wide audience despite the many
years which have passed since it was published.
Set in the Johannesburg of the 1950’s we meet a shy young girl trying to
come to terms with life. When her father died during her early childhood her
London-born mother battled to save the Lowveld farm and Natalie was sent to
a convent boarding school for which she was temperamentally unsuited. With
childish cruelty the children changed her name to Nutalie, Nuts and then the
Latin diminutive Nio. Frightened, and too shy to cope with so many changes in
her early years, she withdraws into a world of books and her imagination.
Then Phoebe befriends her and gradually she starts to learn about life. Later,
through Phoebe’s warm and loving letters from Europe, Nio gains a measure
of understanding and maturity.
Wonderfully evocative of the South Africa of that period, with perceptive pen
pictures of the sort of the characters that peopled small-town society, South
African born E M Macphail has created an unforgettable portrait of a vanished
era.
The gossiping wives in the Platteland dorp have their duplicates everywhere,
while in Magdalena, the black house girl, and Joey, wife of the local drunkard,
she finds a rough understanding and honesty that give her the only true
friendship she has during those horrible months in the bleak mining town and
during the period when she tries to cope with the the tragedy that overtakes
her.
The unexpected reversal of circumstances leading to the solution of the girls’
problems cleverly concludes the story of Phoebe and Nio as seen from the
perspective of an author whose sympathy and understanding has fleshed out
these imaginary lives with extraordinary perception.