... as they reconnect, both women are forced to look at parts of themselves that they have long kept hidden from themselves and other people. Alison, a repressed middle-aged housewife, is in a secure but unexciting marriage, and is inwardly searching for a break from the tedium of her existence. Marilyn, outwardly glamorous and successful, conceals the scars of bitter disappointment and heartbreak.
Becoming is a novel about coming of age, it is about how we can become whole despite our circumstances or our pasts. It is a novel about sexuality and it also deals with the difficult subject of female gential mutilation. Set in modern-day South Africa, the book was inspired by a facts-of-life book of 1950s vintage entitled On Becoming a Woman by Harold Shryock, which at one time was in circulation in South Africa.
