Allan Stratton's book Chanda's Secrets is an exploration of suffering. Young Chanda moves form her hometown Tiro in South Africa to a neighboring, larger village, Bonang, because of her dad's promotion. She makes a best friend and is encouraged to take advantage of her intellect by her teachers, both enabling her to establish habits of optimism in her youth. Then a series of tragedies befall her. Her dad and brothers are killed in a mining accident. She and her mom move into a man named Issac's house to clean for him. Soon he and her mom start dating and have a baby. Unbeknownst to Lillian, Issac is sexually assaulting Chanda. They move when she finds out. For a while they live with Mrs. Tafa, caring for her garden, until Lillian takes up with a Mr. Dube. They have a kid together, and then he dies from a heart attack. Once more they move to the home of a man named Jonah whom Lillian starts dating. They have a child and then several miscarriages, and Lillian gets sick. After he loses his job, Jonah becomes an insatiable alcohol, ignoring Chanda's plight as sole caregiver for the babies and her sick mama. After Jonah and Lillian's baby dies, Jonah throws himself down a well and dies. Lillian's health continues to get worse until Chanda is forced to send her back to Tiro to recover under the care of a doctor. Eventually Chanda learns that her mom has AIDS. She brings her home to die with the family.
After surviving so much, Chanda is a formidable woman. Her youth and adolescence were spent caring for the babies of men she didn't respect and babysitting her delicate mother. As Stratton paints Chanda's life, he focuses on the moments when Chanda is alone because they are so rare and impactful. An argument may be made that Chanda is able to function after all these horrible events only because she's too busy to think about them. She doesn't have spare moments to contemplate the past and deal with her pain, so she largely shoves it to the back of her mind until she finally is alone. In these rare moments, however, she demonstrates such an advanced level of maturity and clarity that it's nearly unbelievable considering her upbringing. She retains the optimism of her early childhood throughout her adolescence, but she does grow embittered toward the world. She holds onto advice her mom has given her regarding love and hopefulness, embodying those attributes in her every action.
The most impactful moment of the book occurs when Chanda travels to Tiro to check in on her mom during her convalescence. She's alarmed to see her mom looks worse than before she left. Finally Lillian admits that she has AIDS and has known all along. She chose to return to Tiro in order to spare her children the burden of caring for her as she dies and the shame of knowing about her disease. Of course Chanda tells her how silly that idea is. After years of not really being able to connect with one another -- whether due to responsibilities or emotional distance or conflict -- mother and daughter share a moment of pure intimacy. They forgive each other of past indiscretions, all the heartache, and make peace after all this time.
