Fact stranger than fiction?
Book review
A collection of three short stories, Namibian author Hermann Evenson’s ‘Fake News About Swakopmund’ takes a magnifying glass to topical issues affecting the coastal town.
In the blurb, he writes: “The fake news doing the rounds in Namibia is that evil spirits have taken over the town of Swakopmund. Rampant abortions, dead babies in dustbins and practices of overt witchcraft are trending in the town. One group of citizens says it is fake news; haters want to tarnish the town’s squeaky-clean image. The other group is adamant that the devil exists and has visited their town. Blatant lies or is there a hint of truth in these short stories?”
‘Abortions’
In the first story, ‘Abortions’, Chrystal, a pro-choice activist – discovering she’s pregnant herself – intends to have an abortion because she’s adamant in practicing what she preaches.
Never mind that she’s married, seemingly in a good position to raise a child and the fact that her husband and family are vehemently against the idea.
The reader never learns whether Chrystal wants a baby or not. Instead, the character becomes a prop who says things like: “I am aborting my baby because it would be unfair of me to spare my baby’s life while encouraging other women to end their babies’ lives”.
An utterly hyperbolic take on the pro-choice movement, the story also introduces the reader to Dr Molech – a psychologist who spent 20 years in prison for a gruesome murder and now moonlights as an abortion provider and serial killer.
His targets? Pregnant black women.
A truly vile character, he spouts lines like: “This one should have been aborted long before she got pregnant. This girl should have been killed in the womb. Blacks should not be allowed to multiply”.
Suffice it to say, the story was hard to get through.
‘A Baby’s Cry’
In ‘A Baby’s Cry’, we meet Alex and Cookie, a seemingly middle-aged couple who live in Swakopmund’s Mondesa township.
Like the aunties many of us know from our own neighbourhoods, Cookie takes up station at the window and watches the street’s goings-on with an eagle eye, as Alex attempts to lure her back to bed.
After an anonymous woman drops a parcel off at the pastor’s door, Cookie swears she hears a baby crying outside in the cold.
Across town, Beulah celebrates her newfound freedom at a bar with a man she’s just met, Hafeni. As the story progresses, she recounts being gang raped at her matric farewell afterparty just 10 months earlier.
Over the course of the night, she decides to keep her baby – the parcel dropped at the pastor’s house – after all, but when she and Hafeni make it to Mondesa, it’s too late.
Told in vivid imagery and with endearing banter between Alex and Cookie, the story is the standout of the collection, and gives the reader a true glimpse of Evenson’s writing talent.
‘Witchcraft’
In the last story, ‘Fake News’ truly loses the plot. We’re transported to a Swakopmund where satanists rule the world and sex is currency and king.
The Church of Sodom and its new leader, Eveline Erotica Ebenheimer, intend to restore the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah and so follows scene after scene after scene of gratuitous violence and utter lewdness.
A salacious story I found it really hard to get through, ‘Witchcraft’ is disturbing and definitely not for the faint of heart. It features obscene mentions of incest, rape and orgies and has absolutely no variation to give the reader some respite.
Final thoughts
Short and to the point, the stories are written in the form of vignettes for every scene, each with its own subhead, and while it lost some of the narrative that usually carries a story, I liked how it highlighted Evenson’s quirky style.
‘Fake News About Swakopmund’ is bound to be polarising, but one thing it will definitely do is get people talking, and I think it is this shock factor the author is after with this collection.
However, the writing desperately lacks nuance.
There are no shades of grey, no subtlety. And while that may win him readers in the short-term, I think – overall – his approach needs refinement.
According to Evenson, ‘A Baby’s Cry’ has been adapted into a radio play by the National Theatre of Namibia, and will be aired on Damara/Nama radio “sometime in the future”.
Describing himself as a “career banker who resigned to work with fictional characters living in imaginary worlds”, Evenson is also the author of the novel ‘The Nightlife of Oshikango’. He is currently working on his second novel as well as another series of short stories based in Swakopmund.
For more information, contact him at [email protected].
‘Fake News About Swakopmund’ is available as an ebook on Amazon for about N$105.
- [email protected]
In the blurb, he writes: “The fake news doing the rounds in Namibia is that evil spirits have taken over the town of Swakopmund. Rampant abortions, dead babies in dustbins and practices of overt witchcraft are trending in the town. One group of citizens says it is fake news; haters want to tarnish the town’s squeaky-clean image. The other group is adamant that the devil exists and has visited their town. Blatant lies or is there a hint of truth in these short stories?”
‘Abortions’
In the first story, ‘Abortions’, Chrystal, a pro-choice activist – discovering she’s pregnant herself – intends to have an abortion because she’s adamant in practicing what she preaches.
Never mind that she’s married, seemingly in a good position to raise a child and the fact that her husband and family are vehemently against the idea.
The reader never learns whether Chrystal wants a baby or not. Instead, the character becomes a prop who says things like: “I am aborting my baby because it would be unfair of me to spare my baby’s life while encouraging other women to end their babies’ lives”.
An utterly hyperbolic take on the pro-choice movement, the story also introduces the reader to Dr Molech – a psychologist who spent 20 years in prison for a gruesome murder and now moonlights as an abortion provider and serial killer.
His targets? Pregnant black women.
A truly vile character, he spouts lines like: “This one should have been aborted long before she got pregnant. This girl should have been killed in the womb. Blacks should not be allowed to multiply”.
Suffice it to say, the story was hard to get through.
‘A Baby’s Cry’
In ‘A Baby’s Cry’, we meet Alex and Cookie, a seemingly middle-aged couple who live in Swakopmund’s Mondesa township.
Like the aunties many of us know from our own neighbourhoods, Cookie takes up station at the window and watches the street’s goings-on with an eagle eye, as Alex attempts to lure her back to bed.
After an anonymous woman drops a parcel off at the pastor’s door, Cookie swears she hears a baby crying outside in the cold.
Across town, Beulah celebrates her newfound freedom at a bar with a man she’s just met, Hafeni. As the story progresses, she recounts being gang raped at her matric farewell afterparty just 10 months earlier.
Over the course of the night, she decides to keep her baby – the parcel dropped at the pastor’s house – after all, but when she and Hafeni make it to Mondesa, it’s too late.
Told in vivid imagery and with endearing banter between Alex and Cookie, the story is the standout of the collection, and gives the reader a true glimpse of Evenson’s writing talent.
‘Witchcraft’
In the last story, ‘Fake News’ truly loses the plot. We’re transported to a Swakopmund where satanists rule the world and sex is currency and king.
The Church of Sodom and its new leader, Eveline Erotica Ebenheimer, intend to restore the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah and so follows scene after scene after scene of gratuitous violence and utter lewdness.
A salacious story I found it really hard to get through, ‘Witchcraft’ is disturbing and definitely not for the faint of heart. It features obscene mentions of incest, rape and orgies and has absolutely no variation to give the reader some respite.
Final thoughts
Short and to the point, the stories are written in the form of vignettes for every scene, each with its own subhead, and while it lost some of the narrative that usually carries a story, I liked how it highlighted Evenson’s quirky style.
‘Fake News About Swakopmund’ is bound to be polarising, but one thing it will definitely do is get people talking, and I think it is this shock factor the author is after with this collection.
However, the writing desperately lacks nuance.
There are no shades of grey, no subtlety. And while that may win him readers in the short-term, I think – overall – his approach needs refinement.
According to Evenson, ‘A Baby’s Cry’ has been adapted into a radio play by the National Theatre of Namibia, and will be aired on Damara/Nama radio “sometime in the future”.
Describing himself as a “career banker who resigned to work with fictional characters living in imaginary worlds”, Evenson is also the author of the novel ‘The Nightlife of Oshikango’. He is currently working on his second novel as well as another series of short stories based in Swakopmund.
For more information, contact him at [email protected].
‘Fake News About Swakopmund’ is available as an ebook on Amazon for about N$105.
- [email protected]
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