This is a simple but interesting story about the life of common black people in segregated Johannesburg in South Africa. The main character is Xuma, a young man who arrived the city from a village in the country. He was housed by Leah, a strong black woman who was in the risky business of selling beer, something that was forbidden for blacks, and the people in Leah’s house were like his new family. He fell in love with Leah’s niece Eliza who was ambivalent toward him because he did not go to school and did not do things the white way. He gets a job at a mine, where he became very popular. His white boss (Red One) was friendly toward him but he did not trust white people beyond working for them, more so since his love didn’t seem to like him because of his lack of white values. A good part of the book dwelt around his pursuit of happiness and Leah’s beer selling business and the crowded life in the ghetto settlement.
There were many things he did not understand, such as how a responsible man could fall so low as to be a drunk always, or why the eyes of miners were empty like sheep’s. It’s when his girlfriend Eliza finally leaves him to some other city that he really begins to grow up emotionally. Shortly before this Leah’s closest male friend died which had its drain on her. And after Eliza went, Leah was shortly arrested for selling beer and sentenced to 9 months. Xuma did not know how to take all these things and he was on the verge of turning into another sheep when his white boss had a very crucial talk with him. Red let him spill the anger he’d been containing toward white people whom he saw as the source of all the bad things that had happened to him. Red told him that he should fight back and that he must think like a man first before thinking like a black man. It was this message that carried the story till the end.
Shortly after their talk there was an accident at the mines and when the mine manager asked the miners to get back in, Xuma said they should not until structures were put right. This turned into a confrontation and Red One was on his side. The police were called and Xuma saw them beating his own boss who was white as well as the black miners. He runs away but could not forget the voice of his boss telling him not to run. He tells his friends what happened but when they advised him to go to another city he tells them that he had to join his boss at the police station and that he wanted to tell the white people how the blacks felt about their being mistreated. Like a hero, his friends praise him for having the courage to do this and this is where the story ends.
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