Embodied Laughter and The Gooseberry, by Craig Higginson (used)

It is South Africa, 1989, and at a remote boarding school in the foothills of the Natal Drakensberg. the boys prepare for their last day.

In this deeply sensuous and poetic novel, Marius and his companions struggle to confront the brutality that underlies the complacent atmosphere of the school, where an unspoken but stringent code of conduct pervades every relationship and informs every gesture.

An acceptance of the body as an imperfect but redemptive vehicle for living lies at the heart of this gripping and flawlessly constructed work. But the events which finally force Marius into fleeing school have a social and political resonance which extends well beyond the school gates.

Also contained in this volume is a short story, part prose poem and part nightmare, which takes the reader further into the strange and inescapable labyrinths of human desire.