'Downhill Without Brakes', by Val Binney, takes places in South Africa, as the shine is wearing off Mandela’s ‘Rainbow Nation’ and the country is grappling with rampant AIDS, huge racial inequalities and mass unemployment.

At the heart of the story, Ezekiel Mabuza and Ben Gallagher struggle to stay afloat in changing times, in their very different communities. The story alternates between their points of view. Ezekiel, popular doorman at Durban city hall, has lost one son to AIDS, the other in gang violence and his wife to cancer. He is convinced that he will lose his daughters next unless he takes urgent action.

Ben, director of the city hall museum, is holding together a shaky marriage and keeping the museum going in straightened times, while training for the Comrades marathon and trying to fend off a municipal strike. An important visit from wealthy Swedish funders is disrupted by a startling incident between Ezekiel and Ben.

Downhill Without Brakes traces how the lives of both men unravel after this event. Ezekiel’s feisty sister-in-law, Nomsa Silongo, battles to rescue him. Only when Ben joins her, do the outcomes for both men begin to turn around.

Val Binney grew up in South Africa and left for the UK in her early twenties due to apartheid. After retiring as a clinical psychologist, she turned to writing, completing an MA in creative writing at Sheffield Hallam university, where she wrote an early version of Downhill Without Brakes. Participation in the Broomspring Writers Group helped develop the novel to its published form.

Val says: ‘I wrote the novel to answer a question haunting me: ‘If I had never left South Africa, how would that “other me” be grappling with the challenges facing the new democratic country.’ This story about Ezekiel Mabuza, Ben Gallagher and their families and friends, helped me to explore that question.

RELEASED ON: 28/09/2024 ISBN:978 1836280 200 £10.99

Book Launch 6.30 pm, Fri 13 Dec 2024, Broomhill Library

https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop/contemporary/downhill-without-brakes