Susi Wyss: Recommended Read of 2011

Susi Wyss is the author of “The Civilized World: A Novel in Stories,” which follows five women — two of them haunted by a shared tragedy — as their lives intersect in unexpected and sometimes explosive ways. The Boston Globe called Wyss’ debut novel “unique and memorable” and Publisher’s Weekly called it “smart” and “urban.”

From Susi:

“My criteria for a good read is simply that it be well-written and keep my attention, but for it to be a favorite, it has to be a good read and a book that matters. Glen Retief’s memoir of growing up in South Africa, “The Jack Bank,” is just such a book. With gorgeous prose, he describes his coming of age at the end of apartheid in the late 1970s — from his initial years on a game preserve where his father worked, through his years in boarding school where he was exposed to the cruelty of his upperclassmen — and the years afterwards, as he continued to be haunted by the ‘jack bank.’ Invented by an upperclassman, the jack bank enabled underclassmen to ‘save’ beatings, ‘earn interest’ on them, and draw on them later to atone for their supposed infractions. As Retief writes movingly of victims and their victimizers — and the complex relationship that can develop between them — the reader comes to understand how the imperceptible, psychic wounds inflicted by violence take much longer to heal than the visible, physical ones.”