Nature Lessons: A Novel

A first-rate beautifully-written novel about an émigré living in the States who goes back to her native South Africa to look for her missing mother--a fictional debut that will be a draw both to critics and to readers of fine accessible fiction. Set against a backdrop of South Africas troubled history natural beauty and complex contemporary society Nature Lessons is a riveting story of a forty-year-old woman Kate Jensen struggling to come to terms with the legacy of growing up with a mentally ill mother--including an inability to form long-term committed relationships--and the guilt she feels as a white person who grew up during the apartheid era. . Leavened with humor and full of wisdom gained from a childhood where natures lessons were all too visible to ignore Lynette Brasfield has written a heartbreaking but ultimately affirming novel about growing up in the shadow of mental illness.