Pan Macmillan

THIS is the sixth of nine synopses of books eligible for the Citizen Book Prize.

The winner will be determined by readers’ votes. To help get your favourite manuscript published, vote and make your mark (see the voting box below the synopsis).

Voting for each synopsis will be open for the week following its publication in CitiVibe. If you miss that, you will be able to reread and vote for all nine synopses online from November 5 – 11.

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This is the only book prize for unpublished authors chosen by the reading public.

The Citizen Book Prize synopsis six

‘We stared into the mystery and it stared straight back at us.’

Mrs Taljaard has been living with a secret for well over 60 years – a secret about something that happened to her in 1944. Now in her eighties, Corrie Taljaard (or ‘Mrs T’ as she was known back then) finally commits to paper all that happened that fateful summer in ’44.

Set in idyllic Parktown, Johannesburg, Mrs T writes about a group of friends she called her ‘knitting circle’ (for that is what most women did while they waited for word from or about their men fighting the war – they knitted – or at least congregated to pretend to).

‘I suppose looking back, what we did was cope. Cope with the waiting,’ writes Mrs T.

But for some, waiting isn’t enough, and soon Mrs T and her friends find themselves in their own battle; they enter a strange world of intrigue in which they must fight for survival in a world filled with avarice.

Meanwhile, something strange is afoot in the quiet suburb … something that makes the ground shake late at night; as if the bombs and the guns of war in far-off North Africa are visiting the otherwise-peaceful suburb.

What Mrs T and her friends discover up on the hill sucks them into a mysterious adventure involving man’s endless quest to seek out the ultimate weapon, resulting in the age-old battle of one mother trying to protect her child. They soon discover that not all wonder and mystery has drained from the world, and that not all monsters have teeth – in fact, they sometimes look just like you and me.

Mrs T and the Rex is part urban myth, part friendship drama, and part World War II-story. It shows that war, no matter where it is fought in the world, affects everybody. Not only the men fighting on the front lines, but also the women who wait anxiously for news at home. The women of Mrs T’s knitting circle find themselves on the edge of their very own front line, fighting an enemy that is both villain and victim; a far-worse danger to all than ‘old Jerry’.

Mrs T’s Parktown enemy represents the ambiguity and moral dilemma of war: just because one is in opposition to someone else, does it mean that you’re right and the opposition is wrong? It forces the reader to understand both perspectives and unwittingly (and perhaps unwillingly) accept that sometimes there is no such thing as ‘sides’.

Told with an honest voice, and a certain innocence, Mrs Taljaard’s story recalls time spent with her close friends, the prevailing loss of life and … the secret up on the hill.

‘You may not believe me, but I’ve come to terms with that a long time ago. Stories aren’t always there to be believed. Just to be told.’

Vote for Mrs T and the Rex by Domenico Pisanti

Citizen Book Prize Shortlist: Mrs T and the Rex by Domenico Pisanti(polling)