Dodging Cows – Paul Meade

A5, 526p.

Uncompromisingly authentic to the era, this thought provoking novel stirs all the emotions.

Cows wandering on roads are an everyday hazard in rural South Africa. They appear suddenly, and their movements are unpredictable. Hitting them can have dire consequences. Dodging Cows is one man’s journey from carefree childhood to lazy student to conscripted soldier to passionate farmer, buffeted by the fault lines in South Africa’s history.

Dodging Cows opens with Luke Ayres preventing an angry lynch mob from exacting rough justice on his farm. The responding police sergeant asks him if it is true that he is selling the farm. Ayres confirms this. Dodging Cows is the story of how he came to this reluctant decision.