“I have given you this gift which you didn’t even know would be a gift, she seemed to be saying by her shrug, and now it is up to you to use it wisely, and pass it on or not as you see fit. But you cannot betray the faith I have placed in you by treating it as if it is some silly folktale.”

A Bed on Bricks gives a gift of nine stories, each tracing complex psychological journeys and relationships pulled apart by chasms of culture, age, class, race and place.

Fumbling for one another across these divides, characters are as rich and diverse as the southern African landscapes they inhabit; an out-of-place academic encounters unusual findings, a too-kind school teacher gets drawn into a drama not of his making, ambitious film-makers go in search of (mis)adventure, children encounter puberty and cross-continental lovers slowly drift apart. As we delve deeper and deeper into the minds and feelings of these characters, we become ever more immersed in their psychologies, caught up in the tension of their relationships and the suspense of their stories.

These are anything but “silly folktales”. Rather, they offer difficult but profound truths about human nature and relationships and offer us as readers a valuable gift. If you enjoy love stories that rupture cliches and offer a challenge, then A Bed on Bricks will be a gift you’ll want to pass along.