Brothers and Lovers

'Brothers and Lovers' is a novel stretching from Apartheid South Africa in the nineteen-fifties via a cruise up the East coast of Africa through the Suez Canal to London and Europe ending in the first years of the 21st Century. An ill-fated love affair between Raymond, a Jewish boy and Crystal, an Afrikaans girl, vehemently opposed both by his parents and her bullying father. Parallel to this is bitter fraternal strife between Raymond and his brother Larry. The story describes the sectarian hatred amongst the white groupings of South Africa set against the racist paternalistic attitudes toward the coloured and black populations. In contrast there is a picture of London in the swinging sixties and seventies, a French Alpine Ski resort and life in England under New Labour at the turn of the Century. Historic events taking place alongside the progress of the story are described in italics.