Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

This book had been on my reading list for years so I finally decided to give it a try. The story is about a British child named Peekay growing up in South Africa as apartheid is beginning in the 1930s and '40s. As a young child, he is sent to a boarding school where he is terrorized by the older children, a formative experience that influence many of his decisions going forward.

While he is bright and well-educated, Peekay's lifelong dream is to become a world champion boxer, and he pursues this dream alongside his other experiences throughout the book. (I had no idea how much strategy went into boxing - I started to get very interested in how the fights were orchestrated although you could enjoy this book without any interest in boxing.) The reader follows Peekay for roughly fifteen years, and sees him grow into a empathetic and strongly principled young man, keenly aware of the racial inequalities around him. Courteney does an excellent job of showing how apartheid was developing in different environments within South Africa - Peekay goes from boarding school to an evangelical environment, works at a jail, attends prep school, and works in the mining industry. What a fascinating collection of settings.

A few parts of the book were a little too "O. Henry" for me, introducing unlikely coincidences to move the plot along. That aside, I enjoyed reading the book and thought the author did a good job of representing realistic emotional growth. There was an innocence about the narration that sometimes made me feel like I was reading a YA novel, but there was enough sophistication that it still kept my attention. I think part of why it felt that way is that Peekay has a strong collection of adult role models and mentors throughout the book but is effectively abandoned by his parents early on, at least emotionally. So in some ways he grows up very quickly and in other ways he is taken care of by many adults along the way.

Apparently, Courteney wrote a sequel called Tandia that I will have to check out. This book certainly will stick with me for a long time.