[In Time of the Butcherbird] La Guma has again deftly constructed a novel whose action develops as a puzzle. Individuals are independently introduced, fleshed out with current concerns and flashback biographies and placed in the setting where they collide. The event which results is brief and final, but all that has preceded is needed either for explanation or evaluation of the denouement. An epilogue suggests the future of the survivors.

The oppression of blacks in a South African hamlet permeates the setting, offers a sketchy, unintegrated subordinate plot and motivates one character, whom we may identify with the proverbial butcherbird, "a hunter and smeller-out of sorcerers, because he impales insects." But most of the text is devoted to the world view of disparate, mean-spirited whites, hardly ever conscious of the kaffirs they abuse.

The elegant structure of montage and the focus on personal foibles dissipate the novel's intended...