"Gordimer trains her keen eye on Steve and Jabulile, an interracial couple living in a newly, tentatively, free South Africa. They have a daughter, Sindiswa; they move to the suburbs; Steve becomes a lecturer at a university; Jabulile trains to become a lawyer; there is another child, a boy this time. There is nothing so extraordinary about their lives, and yet, in telling their story and the stories of their friends and families, Gordimer manages...

Gordimer tells the story of two couples, one white, one black, whose relationships evolve as their homeland, South Africa, heads toward majority rule. At the center is Vera Stark, a woman whose internal world reflects the changing political landscape of her country. This is a complex portrait of a society and its people in transition.