Pieter van Vlaanderen is a lieutenant in the South African police. His father, Jakob is a domineering man who rules his family with an iron fist. Pieter is a tall man who is well-respected in the community, an excellent rugby player and a good father. He has a lot of friends, but yearns for the love that he doesn’t get from his father. Pieter’s wife, Nilla, loves him but cannot equate physical love with real love. Her reserve leaves Pieter starving. He is attracted, against his will, to a local Black girl, Stephanie. He tries to fight his lust, but it is consuming him. Pieter’s Aunt Sophie (from whose point of view the story is written) realizes that he is suffering and suspects that she knows why, but doesn’t have the courage to confront him. On Jakob’s birthday, Pieter gives him a field guide to South African birds. The family questions the gift because Jakob reads no book but the Bible, but Pieter knows his father loves birds and the gift is perfect. His father begins to break down the wall between them. He tells Pieter that the book is incorrect. It says that the Phalarope can only be seen on the coast, but Jakob knows it can be seen in a local marsh and plans a trip with Pieter to show him. The father and son sit silently until they see the Phalarope, and their reconnection is almost complete.

But it's too late. The seeds of destruction have already been sown. The book was strangely written. Paton doesn’t use quotation marks and this makes it pretty choppy at times. But I liked the story. The excerpts from Pieter’s diary seem genuine. His estrangement from his father and feeling of lacking with his wife are very believable. I wonder if Paton had that sort of relationship with is father and wife. It seems likely. It was not a happy book, but the characters were likeable and realistic and that made me feel the impending doom that was alluded to throughout the book.