BOOK CLUB KIT

Discussion Questions
1 Robin is a product of her environment and adopts the racist ideology of those around her. How
do these prejudices and preconceived notions about black people inform the way she acts? How does
her behavior and thinking change throughout the book, particularly toward Beauty?

2 Compare 1970s South Africa to today’s world. How have matters surrounding racism and
homophobia changed since then? In what ways have they remained the same? What can we do
individually and in our communities to facilitate forward thinking and change?

3 Robin and Beauty come together, against all odds, to create a family of their own. How does this
book challenge norms of the conventional nuclear family? How does Beauty’s role as the mother of
Nomsa differ from her role as Robin’s caretaker? What does Hum If You Don’t Know the Words tell
us about human connection in the face of adversity?

4 The pass laws and the Group Areas Act meant that Beauty and her children had to live in the
Bantu homeland of the Transkei, approximately 600 miles from where her husband worked in the
gold mines. How much of Beauty’s family life is affected by the laws of apartheid? Did this have an
impact on Nomsa’s decision to become a freedom fighter? Once apartheid ended in 1994, how much
do you think the state-legislated disintegration of families continued to affect South African society
and black cultures?

5 What purpose does Cat serve in Robin’s life, and what necessitated her appearance? How does
Robin use Cat to navigate her home life with her parents, and then her life with Edith? Is Cat an ef-
fective coping mechanism? Are there any downsides to her presence?

6 Compare Beauty and her daughter, Nomsa. As the plot unfolds and more of Nomsa’s character
is illuminated, what similarities between the two come to light? How does your perception of Nomsa
change throughout the book, and why?

7 What is the significance of the book’s title, and why do you think it was chosen? How does it
relate to the book’s central themes?

8 How does the narrative change between Robin’s and Beauty’s alternating perspectives? What
stylistic choices does the author employ to differentiate each voice from the other? Who is a more
reliable narrator?

9 How does the White Angel help Beauty in her search for Nomsa, and how much does she
hinder it? Does her need to control the situation say anything about Maggie and her subconscious
attitude toward black people? Does Robin really save the day at the end of the story? Do her actions
make everything right, or are they more a child’s way of trying to fix what cannot be mended?

10 What do you make of the ending, and why do you think the author chose to conclude the novel
at this moment? If there were an epilogue, where do you think we’d find the characters?
 BIANCA MARAIS In Her Own

Words
I WAS B ORN IN 1976, the year of the Soweto factory settings. Then when I was five, and my brother
Uprising, when thousands of black students marched made me glittery paper wings and unceremoniously
through Soweto to protest against the apartheid govern- shoved me off the roof to see if I could fly—spoiler
ment. Even though the march was peaceful, the police alert: I couldn’t!—it was Eunice who tended to the
opened fire on them, killing close to a hundred children, wounds, and then stopped him from yelling at me for
some of them as young as twelve years old. While on being stupid enough to plummet to the ground and
the same day, a mere twenty miles away, my care as a break the wings in the process.
five-month-old white baby had been entrusted to one of Later, when my brother grew bored with trying
the very people the apartheid government had decided to kill me, it was Eunice who helped me rehearse for
was less than human: our maid, Eunice. school plays and ballet recitals (though she was legally
I had two wonderful, loving parents, but they both prohibited from ever sitting in an auditorium with
worked full-time, and since we didn’t have access white people to watch me perform) and it was Eunice
to kindergarten or preschool in our neighbourhood, who helped me with my homework (though she’d
most of my care fell to Eunice. As I grew up, she not been deprived of a proper education herself due to the
only fed, bathed and clothed me, but also spent a lot Bantu Education Act). And in spite of doing all this,
of time protecting me from my older brother, who it was Eunice who was assaulted by the police in our
seemed hell-bent on making my life miserable. home because of a neighbour’s report that she was
When I was two, and my brother decided I would abusing me (a conclusion reached from having heard
look much more aesthetically pleasing if I was com- me throwing a lot of tantrums).
pletely purple—and got to work on me like a little Eunice will be ninety-four this year, and she’s still
Picasso during his Blue Period—it was Eunice who a huge part of my life. She was the person I spent a
spent weeks dabbing oil-soaked cotton wipes on my quiet night with on the day before I got married, and
sensitive skin to remove the permanent marker. This she was guest of honour at the wedding, nine years
was apparently the 1970s way of restoring a child to after the end of apartheid. I took Eunice for her very
first meal in a restaurant, as well as her first trip to I began writing this book both as a tribute to Eunice—
the cinema (where she chose to see Rush Hour 2 and a way for me to try to truly understand the life she has
yelled at the screen throughout, after which she tried led—and as a way for me to come to terms with the
her newly learnt kung fu moves on passersby as we many conflicted emotions I had about my own privi-
exited the mall). While it meant the world to me to leged past. And it was only during writing the book
share in these milestones with her, it was also deeply that I realised, with much shame, how much I’d got-
humbling to see her experience things for the first time ten it all wrong. All the while as I grew up, I thought
in her eighties that I had been experiencing and taking the tragedy of apartheid was the many inhumane ways
for granted since I was a child. We still chat regularly in which it had prevented Eunice and me from sharing
over the phone, though I have to shout now because in each other’s lives, when in fact the real tragedy was
she’s a little hard-of-hearing. She’s led such an incred- that I was in Eunice’s life at all.
ibly difficult life, and yet she laughs more than anyone In a fair world, Eunice would not have seen her
I know. She complains only when the pain in her knee five children only once a year at Christmas, when
acts up, or when she feels her sacrifices have been lost she returned to the Bantu homeland of the Transkei.
on her grandchildren. In a fair world, Eunice would have been able to raise
After my husband and I moved to Toronto from her own children instead of having to lavish all of her
Johannesburg in 2012, a story came to me about a maternal affection on someone else’s—let alone the
nine-year-old white girl, Robin, and a black Xhosa children of the oppressor.
woman, Beauty, whose paths cross after the Soweto In writing this book, I did a lot of research to get
Uprising. Their lives become entwined when Robin’s the historical facts right, but more important than that
parents are murdered and Beauty’s activist daughter was approaching writing the black character of Beauty
goes missing. Beauty is in need of a pass book to with great respect and a deep understanding of how ill
stay in Johannesburg legally while she searches for equipped I was to do so. I consulted sensitivity readers
her daughter, and Robin is in need of someone to and cultural experts throughout the process, and I
care for her. Both their problems are solved when hope that I have done Beauty justice. She was inspired
Beauty is hired in a secret arrangement to become by Eunice, and writing her was the most humbling and
Robin’s guardian. enlightening experience of my life.

THE HUM IF YOU DON’T

N TOUR OF
SOUTH
Pietermaritzburg

AFRICA
Transkei