The Wall

By: Max Annas, Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds - translator

Narrated by: Boise Holmes

Winner of the 2017 German Crime Fiction Prize

Moses wants one thing: to get home, where his girlfriend and a cold beer are waiting for him. But his car breaks down on an empty street, not a single human being in sight. Moses slips into The Pines, a gated community, in hopes to find help from a university classmate who lives there. Over there, in the “white” world, everything seems calm, orderly, safe. But once inside, he feels like more of an outsider than ever. And he makes a terrible mistake.

Mistaken identities, racial profiling, and class politics form the backdrop of this intense thriller. The Wall tackles the issues of gun violence, racism, and exclusion in contemporary South Africa - problems that are equally relevant in the United States.

"Annas works like a film director, bombarding us with shot and counter-shot. The reader races to the explosion… an actual shootout. The Wall is a fantastic, yet very funny, novel... Fast, hard and dangerous. A cheetah in book form." --Die Welt (Germany)

"Fear and distrust of anyone who counts as 'the other.' [...]…jam-packed with action, thrills and suspense. A brilliant success!" --Deutschlandradio Kultur (Germany)

"Ducking, hiding, running - these are what drive the novel's dynamics, its minute-by-minute choreography. Instincts dictate behaviors. In this case: prejudice, aversions, and racism." --Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)

Before writing novels, Max Annas worked as a journalist. A renowned film critic, his first novel, The Farm, is currently under film production in South Africa.

©2019 by Max Annas. Translated from the German by Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds, © 2019 by Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds. Originally published under the title DIE MAUER, © 2016 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

It’s a train wreck.

When you begin this book you are immediately all in. I couldn’t stop until I’d finished it. It’s that good. I very rarely write reviews, but this is a bunch of fun and we all need that right now. So, I’m sharing.
The Wall takes place on one single day in a high-walled, exclusive (White) South African sub-division. This is the setting for the entire book. The first person you meet is Moses, a young black man whose old car broke down right at the gates, and whose phone had just died. He had an acquaintance from University that he was pretty sure lived in one of the houses, but he couldn’t remember which one. He had to find him to get help with his truck. Being black he knew the guards would never let him through the gate, and he was very nervous, but he finally climbed over one of the walls and started sneaking about the streets looking for the house. He was very nervous and afraid of being caught being black. Then we meet two more characters, a couple with kids. It goes on from there.
This book is a treat.