Her disappointment in life and abject loneliness coupled with an attraction and repulsion she feels toward Moses eventually leads to her total breakdown.

Anger soon transforms to disengagement and apathy. Her restlessness transforms to anger when she learns of her husband’s incompetence in managing his affairs and his total inability to eke out a decent living. She is shocked to discover the meager condition of his home and farm. She marries the first man who asks her-Dick Turner, a farmer. She is happy being a reliable, “sisterly” friend without romantic attachments or desires until she hits the age of thirty when she becomes focused on finding a husband. The novel then shifts back in time to reveal the events leading up to the murder.Įager to escape her drunken father and embittered mother, Mary moves to the city where she leads a contented, financially independent life as a secretary. The Grass is Singing by the 2007 Nobel Prize winner, Doris Lessing, is a scathing indictment of South Africa apartheid as revealed through the tragic lives of Mary and Dick Turner and Moses, their “house boy.” The novel opens with the newspaper announcement of Mary’s murder and Moses’ arrest.

Doris lessing the grass is singing