Modjaji Books

A special report for Modjaji Books from Maire Fisher.

Literary agent Ron Irwin interviewed Tracey Farren, author of the high impact novel, Whiplash, at the Cape Town Book Fair this weekend. Whiplash is about a Cape Town sex worker who launches into a brave personal battle to turn her life around. Irwin asked about the source of this main character, ‘Tess.’ Farren told of her research on Prince George Drive outside Muizenberg, where girls lined the tar divide between her Chubb-alarmed suburb and the wind-battered flats. She mentioned a cheeky young woman who was murdered by a client and buried in the dunes. She mentioned, too, a school friend who had become a high class prostitute. They met as adults and the friend helped Farren understand some of the psychological dynamics of selling sex.

Irwin inquired about the extent to which Whiplash was intended as a feminist work. (This question was particularly relevant given the strong presence of women’s rights activists at the talk). Farren replied that Whiplash was strongly feminist but refused the stigma of it being anti-male. The character ‘Tess’, she said, dramatically expresses the split that most women experience – between the feminine body and its association with the male pleasure, and the powerful force of the feminine spirit. ‘Tess’s’ efforts to bridge this split are intensified by her childhood experiences and her daily work. On the possibility of the book being anti-male, Farren pointed out that most of the perpetrators of abuse are male, but that there is an effort to explain the repetition of violence, to understand the abuser’s own pain. There are also two wonderful men who play crucial roles in the story.

Irwin asked directly about the central theme of Whiplash. Farren replied without hesitation that it was about the sameness of the human soul. ‘The essential identity of all people is pure and innocent. I have a big, big problem with the doctrine of original sin.’ ‘Tess’s’ life, Farrren said, plays out this truth. Tess finds a tiny spark within her that leads her to remember her true, sacred identity.

When asked about whether or not she was concerned that the world of the story was too harsh for her readers, Farren said that she was sustained, as a writer, by the wry, dismissive humour of the main character. This humour should ‘carry’ the reader easily. Also, the story is told retrospectively, so the reader knows that this woman has survived. They know that much good must have happened between then and now to allow ‘Tess’ to laugh.