crippling poverty is attainable for a woman.  The story had me spellbound from the first page. Evocative imagery conjures up the vibrancy of a city finding its place. Luscious, rich characters, lyrical prose draw the reader into an intricate saga that spins out into a rich and powerful story of one woman’s struggle for independence. To me it was almost a parallel for the clash of India’s patriarchal culture and the pivot between tradition and modernism.
 ‘Independence changed everything. Independence changed nothing. Eight years after the British left, we now had free government schools, running water and paved roads. But Jaipur still felt the same to me as it had ten years ago, the first time I stepped foot on its dusty soil’.
Lakshmi Shastri is a 30 year old woman with a remarkable talent. She is a henna artist of note with a clientele that includes the most rich and favoured Indian families in the city.  Her intricate and innovative designs are known to bring wayward husbands back into the fold, her skills encompass the spiritual symbols that embody the culture. But she is also a healer whose knowledge of plant properties extends way beyond the simple cures. Husbands seek her help when their mistresses fall prey to unwanted ills; wives seek help for barrenness and more. She is their confidante, privy to the secrets of the rich and able to provide solutions. And, with match-making another of her skills, she is poised to improve her life even more.  Ambitious, perceptive, private and empathetic her singular purpose is to own her own house and to live a life of her own choosing.  She is a cautious woman who has sacrificed much. By leaving her abusive, arranged marriage in her village some 15 years before, she lost her parents to the shame she caused them, her reputation is intact and she distances herself from advances. Her benefactor, wealthy architect Samir Singh, respects her skills and in exchange effects introductions to pursues her dream. But all this is about to change…
When her husband Hari suddenly appears with her sister, 13 year old Radha, born after she left, Lakshmi’s ordered world becomes complicated. Taking on her familial responsibility, Lakshmi soon realises that Radha’s high spirited yet naïve personality will challenge her existence with unimagined consequences. As they say…the best laid plans…
Some truly memorable characters represent  the sweeps of the artist’s brush as they link all the parts together.  Malik, Lakshmi’s young servant, old and wise beyond his years, Kanta Agarwal, the best friend who inadvertently diverts Lakshmi’s journey,  Dr Jay Kumar to whom healing can take many forms, these remain etched in one’s mind.  But there are so many more, each with their unique facets and for this Joshi has provided a helpful cast of characters as reference.
She has written a beautiful story which snakes through India’s caste system, the entitlement of the rich, the lavish cultural heritage, the wanton desires of powerful men to the determination of educated but poor women.   
But in the end it reaches a place of peace and fulfilment leaving a profound satisfaction.  

For Malherbe, great-niece of Goldblatt, mystery had always surrounded this relative. Stories were told over family tables. Gossip was rife. Malherbe remembers her as a strict disciplinarian and a talented teacher, but there was no distinctive history of this woman who had virtually renounced her Jewish heritage and taken on the cloak of an Afrikaner. Malherbe’s curiosity was piqued and as a writer and lawyer she took on the task of finding more about this unsung heroine. She explains in the introduction that she wanted to tell the simple love story she uncovered ‘between a young, red-headed Jew and an older Afrikaans literary icon’ and ‘had his child’. And therein the mystery lies…
It was to Goldblatt that Langenhoven left his literary legacy when he died suddenly in 1932, and through her extraordinary efforts, saw more than two million copies sold of his books by her death in 1975. When JC Kannemeyer wrote a biography of Langenhoven in 1995, in his narrative he had ‘cast Sarah as the Jew who hero-worshipped Langenhoven; the Jew who was always the outsider and whose appointment to control his literary legacy was a matter of some surprise and much speculation.’
Goldblatt arrived in Cape Town from London in 1897. Her father David, was a printer and so early on she became familiar with the trade.  She spoke Yiddish and English and with her aptitude for language she learned Afrikaans when she met the older Langenhoven in Outshoorn. He was editor of the local paper, she became his assistant. He called her his ‘Sub’ and he was her ‘Chief’, endearments that endured throughout their relationship. She was 20 and, as their relationship developed so too did Goldblatt’s passion for Afrikaans and the culture. It was a time (1920s and ‘30s) of harsh anti-Semitism in the Afrikaner community but she became the ‘intimate house guest’ of the family, a status maintained long after Langenhoven’s death. She was a good friend to Vroutjie, Langenhoven’s wife and to their daughter Engela, becoming godmother to her son, Guillaume. Her feelings and devotion to Langenhoven were obsessive and remained the driving force throughout her life.   
In fact, as I read, I felt that here was a woman who had willingly relinquished her own identity in taking on the mantle of his legacy. How many other women out there have largely been ignored but have been instrumental in shaping history?
Malherbe’s book is a detailed document of her research journey. It is a memoir and biography that spans decades of archival documents, letters and memories. A fascinating read, she slowly uncovers this story.  Malherbe is meticulous as she records her conversations with those who had known Goldblatt, some with the late Elsa Joubert, who was a long-time friend, others as memories from family members and those whose lives had crossed hers. Telling personal correspondence between Goldblatt and Langenhoven reveal an enduring fondness, an understanding of personal issues and sharp insight into what made this relationship so vital to them both.
Malherbe shapes her personal conclusions from irrefutable evidence and raises many questions on interpretation.  The lawyer in her combines seamlessly with the writer as she takes us into the intimate world of this remarkable woman.
It is an unbiased look at this great-aunt of hers and I found it utterly absorbing as she reconstructs a Sarah Goldblatt who was feisty, difficult, highly intelligent and full of passion for the man she loved. For someone educated in England, this was a book that introduced me to two memorable characters who trod the path of Afrikaans literary greatness. With research conducted over several years Malherbe painstakingly, inch by inch, with love and respect shows us a woman out of her time, who pursued a passion and in many ways paid dearly for it. And the son? Read the book!