I did not find Bonnie to be a particularly sympathetic character.

Yesterday’s Tears, Tomorrow’s Pearls Recommended The Review The book opens with Pearl stepping onto an airplane to carry her to South Africa in an effort to clear her parent’s names. When Pearl’s parents met, fell in love and paid a heavy price for such in the 1960 apartheid clad land of her birth Abraham Mogale and Bonnie Winters knew the dangers of their relationship. Prejudice was rampant. Those who would tell the police the ‘Kaffir’ man and white woman were lovers had no thought other than their own bigotry. Australian born Bonnie had two strikes against her. The combination of youthful temerity coupled with her abhorrence of the whole apartheid situation was overwhelming to Abraham’s restraint. They were reported. Abe was beaten unmercifully. Bonnie found herself raped by the three white policemen who had been following them, and no one would believe the police were the ones who had caused her bruises and bloody appearance. Believing Abe dead Bonnie went sadly off to the prison where she would give birth to Pearl before attaining her freedom. How Abe managed to escape is something of a mystery. Abe made his way across the African continent thence to Canada. Bonnie’s sentence was served, she worked for the time it took for her gain adult status and become the sole proprietor of her father’s trust fund. While waiting for the day when she could leave South Africa forever Bonnie discovered Abe had survived the beating at the hands of the police and was now a wanted criminal. She enlisted the help of a black co-worker where she worked, insisted upon eating in the black lunch room with the other women in the typing pool, found her baby in a kraal, boarded a ship bound for New York and set out to make a new life for herself. Bonnie’s story does have a happy ending when she finally does track down Abe. Romance is not my forte, however this particular tale, Yesterday’s Tears, Tomorrow’s Pearls had a good story woven around the romance and the graphic sex. Intermarriage is not an easy matter today, and most certainly was not in the 1960’s South Africa. Aussie Bonnie had not had to deal with anything to compare with the brutal prejudice faced by the native people living in Africa. I felt some of Bonnie’s dismay as she found herself facing the unfairness of the new situation as she and her mother moved to live in a country not too similar to the one she had always known. I did not find Bonnie to be a particularly sympathetic character. I grew up in California where we did not face the type of prejudice found in many areas, hence my black friends were not viewed with any type of hatred by anyone in or out of my family. Bonnie on the other hand was told on many occasions that all relationship between black and white led to horrid repercussions for both parties, and especially for the black involved. Still she stormed ahead with little thought of the danger her relationships might cause. A bit of discretion on Bonnie’s part would have led to the same outcome for herself and Abe and without all the brutality. Bonnie knew she was to have her father’s money in a short time. At that time she and Abe could have simply left South Africa, begun a new life and neither would have been savaged as they were. In Yesterday’s Tears, Tomorrow’s Pearls Writer Jardin’s characters are well developed, dialog is gritty, hard hitting and moving. Bonnie’s youth, she was 17 when the story began, coupled with a fierce sense of right and wrong did not hold her in good stead where her ideas of equality and refusal to see skin color went against everything considered to be the norm. Writer Jardin has woven in Yesterday’s Tears, Tomorrow’s Pearls an interesting tale of a head strong young woman who has little interest in the welfare of those she is determined to befriend. The utter unfairness of the situation of 1960 South Africa is a little overwhelmed as we follow this self-centered young woman and her determination to fly in the face of social mores. The awful detriment and horrid danger of those she will befriend appear to go right over her head. Following Bonnie’s release from prison she proved once more that she had no more regard for the safety of the black employees in her new job than she did before she and Abe were discovered. She again forces a friendship with several of her co-workers. I would have hoped that Abe’s terrible beating might have persuaded Bonnie that a little discretion can be as effective as blasting straight into the furnace. Bonnie does redeem herself a bit in that she refused to leave her child behind when she shakes the dust of the African continent from her feet. I was pleased to follow Bonnie as she searched for her child. However, she put another co-worker in terrible danger by insisting that he help with the search. Yesterday’s Tears, Tomorrow’s Pearls is a hard hitting, abrasive narrative many may find hard to accept. However for those who are interested in a drama set in a time within our collective past that is not a particularly lovely era the book will have much to offer.