Review: Budding Talent
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 4, 2013
More a novella than a novel, Spiral Aloe plumbs the depths of some thorny issues in the developing world. Her canvas depicts an imaginary village in the mountains of an isolated country, Lesotho, located inside South Africa.  The author manages the main plot introducing an American Peace Corps' volunteer expertly. Various subplots, the AIDS epidemic, cultural disintegration, and emotional deceit are woven seamlessly together.  Emotional and cultural tensions mount as the remote society progresses outside the scope of its traditional arbiter, the chief. Authentic characters flounder in an anchorless boat.  The story is well written and edited but the amazing photos make it difficult to imagine that it is not autobiographical. With work fleshing out the various underlying intrigues and sprouting characters, there are the seeds of a great novel here. Perhaps even an embryonic V.S. Naipaul's, Guerrillas, without the totally prevailing darkness, isolation and bitterness.