The author returns from the Netherlands to pay her respects to her gentle friend Ruben after he is brutally murdered on his farm in the Eastern Cape. This triggers memories of her earlier journeys from the 1960s to the 1990s, with her staunchly Nationalist father and her forbidden relationship with a black colleague. Even here, violence intruded. Frank and fearless, Annemarié van Niekerk poignantly interweaves her personal story with some of the most pressing issues of our time.