The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club

Lauren Liebenberg

For all of us there comes a fall, a loss of innocence - a time after which we are never again the same. For twelve-year-old Tommy and Chris, growing up on the mines of Johannesburg, that time came in 1958.

Goaded by the pulse of Elvis, Little Richard and the kwela kwela rhythms of the black ghettos, these young jive cats of the West Rand Cons Mine look to prove their grit on the slumyard dance floors and in the sweat-soaked ring of the boxing club, run by the enigmatic and wise Jock McGinty. But Tommy has a little sister Cecilia, sweet, whimisical and vulnerable. Unwittingly, she will make the friends face a choice between courage and cowardice, between loyalty and betrayal,

This is a poignant, compelling story about the endurance of friendship, and about coming of age in South Africa at a time that was at once charmed and cruel.