Elizabeth

Elizabeth is a South African refugee who leaves her husband and moves to Botswana with her young son. Although her exact mental illness is not made clear, she regularly suffers from extreme mood swings, hallucinations, and deep, depressive episodes. These hallucinations include Sello and Dan, two men who torture her and test the limits of her sanity.

As a biracial woman brought up in apartheid South Africa, Elizabeth’s ancestry complicates the treatment she receives in an already brutal, racist regime. Madness also runs in her blood, as her mother committed suicide in a mental asylum when she was only six years old. Elizabeth’s relentless inquiries into the nature of good and evil are fueled by a desperation to understand the suffering she has gone through.

At the end of the novel, Elizabeth starts on the path to recovery after Sello helps her realize the truth about love—that it is supposed to be a mutually fulfilling arrangement. This empowers her to break free from the two apparations. Luckily, those close to Elizabeth continue to cherish and support her despite her instability. It is a testament to her remarkable goodness and sensitivity that she becomes so quickly enmeshed within such a loving community.

Shorty

Nicknamed so because his height has not seemed to change since he was three years old, Shorty is Elizabeth’s only child. For most of the novel, she simply refers to him as the “small boy.” Such an impersonal term affirms the fact that Elizabeth sometimes views her son with unfamiliarity and detachment.

At one point, Elizabeth fails to recognize Shorty and is too afraid to ask him who he is. During depressive periods, when she neither sleeps nor eats, her son finds a way to provide for himself. Despite such instances, Shorty is Elizabeth’s sole lifeline to earth—the only thing she truly cares about. The novel ends with him composing a simple poem that resonates with her deeply.

Sello

Sello is one of the apparitions who haunts Elizabeth. He first appears four months after she moves to Botswana, taking the form of one of the villagers. Although the real Sello is a farmer and cattle breeder by trade, the apparition appears to Elizabeth as a powerful, godlike figure.

As the director of Elizabeth’s “internal drama,” Sello preys upon her vulnerability and casts aspersions on her notions of God, goodness, and the brotherhood of man. Finally, after she suffers her nervous breakdown, he extends her a “lever out of hell.” In their last conversation together, Sello apologizes and confesses to using Elizabeth in order to humble Dan.

Dan Molomo

Another apparition who torments Elizabeth is Dan Molomo, who takes the form of another villager—one of the few cattle millionaires in the country. The real Dan is also a beloved African nationalist and one of Sello’s close friends. Because the apparition has the same good looks, he quickly gains Elizabeth’s trust.

Soon after romancing Elizabeth, Dan’s true intentions become clear. He makes her feel suffocated by an environment of excrement, filth, and various perversions—with his “powerful penis” and “seventy-one nice-time girls.” At the end of the novel, Elizabeth breaks free from his hold, and he is forced to walk out of her life.

Eugene

As a fellow South African refugee, Eugene is one of the first to empathize with Elizabeth and extend a helping hand. When she is fired from her schoolteacher post, he helps her find work at the local industries project, which he founded himself. Elizabeth describes him as having a “practical genius.”

One of Eugene’s main concerns is education, specifically a pragmatic education accessible to those...