Nadia Davids's CAPE FEVER

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the digital ARC of Nadia Davids’s Cape Fever. The book is out tomorrow! 

Nadia Davids’s Cape Fever is a claustrophobic descent into a world of manipulation, control, and surreality. Set in post-World War I in an unnamed colonial town, the novel begins in the midst of Soraya Matas’s interview to be a maid for Mrs. Hattingh, a reclusive widow whose life and home and, perhaps, her sanity have been crumbling. Soraya, desperate for a job and coached by her mother in how best to appear, is able to portray herself as meek and obedient and ignorant, unable to read and write.

She gets the job.

Mrs. Hattingh insists that Soraya leave her family home in the Muslim Quarter to live with Mrs. Hattingh, who has no other servants left. As the story progresses, the two women’s lives become more and more intertwined in their shared solitude. Eventually, Mrs. Hattingh insists that she should help Soraya write letters to her fiance, transcribing Soraya’s thoughts so that her relationship can withstand the couple’s separation. That weekly writing ritual, along with Soraya’s growing awareness of the spirits inhabiting the home, become more and more oppressive, creating barriers from Soraya’s connection to the rest of her life.

Oh, I loved this book. It made me deeply uncomfortable, and as I read, I felt my shoulders creep higher and higher, the tension nearly unbearable (in the best possible way). Davids excels at building an atmosphere that reflects the creep of the skewed power dynamics between the two women, the ways that Mrs. Hattingh is able to wiggle her way into every corner of Soraya’s life and identity.

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