Reviews

As the subtitle, Stories from a South African Childhood suggests, this memoir focuses heavily on Trevor’s childhood and teenage years and doesn’t really delve into his career. Trevor was born to a white father and a black mother at a time when such a union was illegal. Even with the end of apartheid and the abolishing of the law that made his parents’ act illegal, Trevor still struggled to figure out where he belonged in a society whose racial groups he didn’t neatly fit into. His relationship with his mother is also a large focus of his story as he shares the adventures they’d go on together and the pranks he would pull and then be punished for.

I don’t love to rate memoirs, and I’m not really familiar with Trevor’s career, but I raced through his book very quickly. There was a great balance between the comedic moments of his childhood and the seriousness of some of the trials he and his mom endured. I also learned so much about apartheid, a period of time that I, admittedly, didn’t know a lot about. Learning about apartheid through the firsthand experiences of Trevor and his mother as well as his reflections on that time as an adult, left a lasting impression. My only complaint about the book is that, at times, I found it difficult to discern what age he was in a chapter because it was not structured chronologically. Overall, I highly recommend this book!