[1] Unlike Gordimer's earlier work, the novel was ignored by the apartheid government's censor, though the book's South African publisher was later raided by the Security Police.

[3] The story follows the Smales, a liberal White South African family who were forced to flee Johannesburg to the native village of their black servant, July.

Anne Tyler, writing for The New York Times, praised the novel, saying that Gordimer "has outdone herself" and that the work was "So flawlessly written that every one of its events seems chillingly, ominously possible".

[3] In his book Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics: Finding Something Different, Anthony C. Alessandrini referred to Tyler's take on the novel as "maddening" given that the "events" she describes result in the fall of apartheid.

[5] The government of Gauteng Province provided the following reason for the ban: The subject matter is questionable ... the language that is used is not acceptable, as it does not encourage good grammatical practices ... the reader is bombarded with nuances that do not achieve much ... any condemnation of racism is difficult to discover - so the story comes across as being deeply racist, superior and patronising.