The Fight Room

Psychosocial disorders are a very real thing in African communities though they are largely ignored or never considered to have impact on social behaviour. The story is set in South Africa, Gauteng and Johannesburg. The characters' belief systems are founded on Christianity and African spiritualism. The title 'The Fight Room' is an expression of the internal human struggle. The human struggle is a fight, it's a battle to conquer ourselves.

The reader is introduced to The Fight Room through Mark, a drug addict trying to keep his head above water but then addiction is something he somewhat enjoys. The Doc's offices also introduce us to a couple trying to get back to normalcy after going through a miscarriage. As they work through their problems we see the fractures in who they are and in their marriage life and wish it wasn't so. In the fight room we witness battles of mental illness and the destruction caused by mental illness misbehavior. Then we see humanness in weakness, in strength, grief, spirituality, all the way to the point of murder. Thandi is another character we meet up with in the doctor's offices as she battles an unknown form of mental disorder that affects her long term memory. One night she is jumpy and can't sleep and decides to go and spend the night at the Doc's apartment. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time she is stabbed to death and so starts Ndlovu's (her out of the blue husband) quest for revenge.

"The Fight Room" maps out its story by taking the reader into the character's mind and feelings so that these characters can be seen as they truly are.

The first chapters of the book zero in on different characters, introducing us to their lives and their battles while weaving the story toward the events that turn the lives of ordinary people into a world of violence and deceit. Though the book starts off as if telling a story about separate themes in the end it becomes about one thing survival of the fittest.

Dettagli