Ted Botha, author of the thrilling Daisy de Melker: Hiding Among Killers in the City of Gold (2023), is back with a novel this time. The Animal Lover is a wild, hilarious, utterly engaging adventure that traverses continents and timelines, transporting readers from modern to colonial Africa and back again, with stops in London, Mexico City and Manila.
Upton Magna, the beleaguered son of evil millionaire Solomon Magna, has been exiled to a backwater city in an unnamed West African country, where a portrait of the cross-eyed president of state for life hangs above the counter of the Shall We Go? Club. Like the weather outside and the water from his shower, Upton’s life is tepid, neither surprising nor unpredictable.
He father’s words on his 18th birthday ring in his ears: “Ruthlessness, boy. That’s the key. Never let sentiment stand in your way.” This followed his recent acquisition of a reputable London publishing company that he’d bought for a song after destroying owner Geoffrey Badland’s reputation and causing him to shoot himself in the head. There’s also suspicion that he may have had something to do with the death of Upton’s mother.
While Magna Exchange gets rubber from Indonesia, coffee from South America and many other items his highly paid, nefarious siblings can convince people to trade, Upton cannot find anything to export. His lascivious, cackling half-sister, Jocelyn, had imposed on him skin-lightening creams that left faces blotchy, muscle relaxants concocted from rebottled mayonnaise mixed with car oil. She is about to close a deal on the Iguana Matchstick Company, which will give her access to minerals on a large piece of virgin-territory Indonesia, as well as a rare indigenous forest that she can sell to coffee farmers. So excited is she, that she imagines the trail of smoke the burning wood will create as it blots out the sky.
Meanwhile, brother Felix recently sold a beachside property near Cancún to a German company, which later discovered that a group of militants were claiming the same beach and were prepared to die fighting for it.
Unless he succeeds in finding what the chairman (his father) describes as Magnaficent, Magnafrican, Upton will be sent to an undesirable Middle Eastern branch office. Peanuts in whisky bottles and exotic locally made sandals are not cutting it, despite his helpful advertising jingles: “Shoes in lacquer/Your feet could flatter.”
His life takes a most peculiar (welcome?) turn when he meets the enigmatic Ella Bazaar — the daughter of a hapless ringmaster who died after being suffocated by an elephant.
Together, they set off to recover a stolen okapi. At the same time, Upton is drawn to a book, a diary beginning in 1939. Penned by Hercule Perpignon, a dashing French engineer — tall and dark like a 1940s’ Latin movie star — living on a coconut plantation during the war. The story reveals curious parallels between Upton and Hercule, and between Ella Bazaar and the enchanting Sylvie, a healer and palm reader who turns Hercule’s life upside down. Underlying all the chaos of his journey with Ella Bazaar in her Pink Jeep, is their story.
Upton finds himself developing a sense of affection for them, and even feels sorry for the swaggering Hercule, who, having nothing much to do, turned into game hunter in the style of Teddy Roosevelt, whose safari to eastern Africa resulted in a long list of casualties. Like Roosevelt, hunting — adventurous and fraught with peril — makes Hercule’s veins thrill.
In a style reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and William Boyd, Botha’s narrative blends sharp wit and satire, with biting critiques of social norms and institutional inefficiencies. Through the captivating dialogue and interactions of his wonderful cast of characters, he reveals much about human folly and vanity. But there’s also a deep exploration of moral complexities. How do we process sin, guilt and redemption during political and social turmoil?
The Animal Lover is a thrilling escapade that will keep readers guessing about these questions and the intertwined destinies of people across time and geographies until its explosive ending.
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