Book review: Sex, Lies & Stellenbosch

Berdine Odendaal is in many ways an inspiration. Markus Jooste’s alleged skelmpie led the charmed life before the Steinhoff scandal broke. She smoked long cigarettes in her Bantry Bay flat.

She showed off her washboard stomach and pranced around with her polo horses. When the scandal broke, all she had to do was go to Val de Vie and hide away.

No information on her life with Jooste is frustrating. I, for one, want all the salacious gossip. I want to know what their sex life was like. I want to know what she did to get all she got.

Enter Eva Mazza and her fabulously pulpy Sex, Lies & Stellenbosch – a novel that goes behind the vines of the Western Cape town. Because indeed, the superrich’s lives are fascinating and Mazza dreamed up a real treat to read.

Sex, Lies & Stellenbosch uncovers what really goes on behind closed doors in the seemingly upstanding community of Stellenbosch, one of South Africa’s wealthiest towns, home to around 3 400 dollar millionaires (before they invested in Steinhoff shares, of course).

The book is written in a way that will have you feverishly reading all afternoon, not because it’s particularly wise or profound, but because it’s addictive.

Eva Mazza. Picture: Corrie de Vries

If you wanted all the sauce, here it is. Mazza has a talent for inventing characters that don’t need to be complete people, they simply have to live in the story.

“Poker night had started off as a legitimate monthly card game; it was Frans who’d turned it into ‘poke-her’ night. He’d been going to a gentleman’s club in the city for quite some time. It was he who had suggested that they spice up their regular boys’ night, assuring everyone that it was discreet and upmarket; at a price, of course.

“They were wealthy enough to buy discretion and they were all keen to bring some excitement into their lives. Being in a group somehow made it more acceptable, should their wives ever find out. So, poke-her night it became. It was, as most of these clubs were, at an undisclosed address in Cape Town.”

If this extract used to market the novel doesn’t have you salivating, you’ll be pleased to know that, on top of being a racy page-turner, the book is also really, really funny.

Info

Rating: ★★★★☆
Author: Eva Mazza
Publisher: Jacana Media
Price: R130
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9781928420378

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