When Hoopoes Go to Heaven

June 15, 2013

Orphaned by gun violence, ten-year-old Benedict, moves from Rwanda to Swaziland with grandmother Angel Tungaraza, the heroine of Parkin's first novel, Baking Cakes in Kigali. The new house, filled with bookshelves and boasting a garden rife with bugs and birds, entertains his thoughtful imagination. While Benedict's cousins play sports all day, he chats up the neighbors, and his curious nature draws him to the town's more troubled residents. There's schoolgirl Nomsa, whose teacher pays her a suspicious amount of attention; Petros, a cowherd dreaming of buried treasure to finance a marriage; and housekeeper Titi, who's being wooed by a married man. Intuiting that Angel is now at loose ends, Benedict devises a scheme to circumvent the country's restrictions on female-owned businesses. Soon Angel is teaching the local women the fine art of cake decorating and partnering with Ubuntu Funeral Homes to memorialize the dead with culinary confections. Parkin has a light touch, but don't be fooled. Under the surface lies the more complicated narrative of life under a monarch in a country where women are undervalued, unemployment and crime are rampant, and HIV devastates the young. VERDICT Parkin's novels have been compared to Alexander McCall Smith's Botswana books, exuding generosity of spirit known in southern Africa as ubuntu. Published last year in England, this optimistic, life-affirming novel should find wide readership in the States.--Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Estero, FL

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