Pat Stevens

The Greatest Game Pat Stevens

The Greatest Game is the first of a four-book anthology, counterpointing the lives of four main characters, against a transforming South Africa. Depicting a scenario you may not have encountered before, because thus far the South African transition, has been written exclusively by liberal journalists. Books written by clowns are good for a belly laugh, but a political event of such magnitude normally produces great novels, and the four books of The Greatest Game quartet are serious contenders. The main character in the series, is the scion of the wealthy Rupertheimer family, and the bane of his famous uncle Randlord Rupertheimer. This first book is set in the sixties, it introduces you to the zany schoolboy Rupertheimer, and his friends called the Pack. They are the Englishman Nick Jarvis and Peter Khumalo the Zulu, along with the Afrikaner Hofmeyr, who is a talented rugby player. Unfortunately there are also the selfish liberals Thorn Thompson and Dick Clott, who would engender in Rupertheimer, a lifelong abhorrence of posturing neoliberalism. This opening book describes the sixties schooldays, where Rupertheimer scores a rugby penalty with a piano, then comes military service where Rupertheimer manages to sink a South African Navy ship. This makes a mortal enemy of navy Killick Vokop which continues through the series., but despite these many misfortunes Rupertheimer shows early signs of the remarkable prescience, he'd one day employ to guide his country to an embryonic democracy. Although these books are fiction they are set solidly against history, and the picture painted of the Johannesburg liberal press is one of cowed compliance with apartheid, rather than valiantly opposing it as they claim. If you prefer your fiction laced with a semblance of historical truth, ignore the feeble excuses of liberal journalists, and rather read the novels of Pat Stevens.