Review: You Will Be Safe Here

You Will Be Safe Here by Damian Barr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Set in South Africa in two timelines, You Will Be Safe Here explores the idea that telling someone "you will be safe here" is sometimes a perverted way of justifying mistreatment and confinement. In 1901, Sarah and her son Fred are swept from their farm in rural South Africa in the midst of the Second Boer War, in which the British employed a scorch-and-burn method of removing families, mostly women and children, left behind while their soldier husbands were away fighting, from their homes. The British soldiers burned the dwellings, barns, and crops, and funneled the people into concentration camps "for their safety." In reality, the British Empire was fighting with two Boer states, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, over the Empire's influence in South Africa, and they wanted to destroy anything that would give sustenance or support to the Boer soldiers. In 2010, Irma and Jan drop off Irma's teenage son Willem at the New Dawn Safari Training Camp, which is supposed to turn boys into men. Willem has been expelled from school for an incident that was not really his fault, but because he's sensitive and different, his stepfather insists that he needs straightening up, in more ways than one. New Dawn is a cruel and horrible place, with many parallels to the concentration camp that Sarah and her son were forced to endure. The reader eventually learns the connections between these two timelines and places. Although a sobering story about a history that most of us have no knowledge of, there are moments of devotion, caring, and connection that lift the heart. Highly recommended.

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