The Story Archive

The House Gun

Nadine Gordimer · 1998 CE · Novel · South African · Contemporary

A retired insurance director and his doctor wife are told at their door by a stranger that their son has shot a man dead in the communal house he lived in, using the weapon the household left lying on a table against intruders. The cells, the bail application and the senior counsel they must now depend on all belong to a country whose courts they had never had reason to enter. Gordimer's first book set wholly after the transition.

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Attributes

Genre
Crime / NoirPoliticalPsychological
Theme
Guilt & ConscienceJustice & RevengeRace & IdentityLove
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanAnti-Hero
Plot structure
TrialIronic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The TrialThe HouseThe Prison
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
RealistIronic
Culture / tradition
South African

Closest analogues