David Lurie is a professor of Communication, who does not respect the courses he teaches. He is 52, divorced and his ambition is to write a composition on Byron.
Once a week he uses escort services for his sexual satisfaction. He is a client of Soraya.
After meeting Soraya and her two sons accidentally in the city, she
starts to estrange herself from him. Out of boredom, David seduces one of his students - Melanie Isaaks. After a few meetings with her, he is served with a complaint on behalf of harassment. Following a hearing, he is asked to take a leave.
He departs to Salem in the Eastern Cape to his
daughter’s
farm. His lesbian daughter lives by herself and earns a living from her boarding
house for dogs, selling flowers and garden produce. She is assisted by Petrus, her black neighbour, a farmer and land owner.
David shares his daughter’s home and life. He volunteers in an animal shelter which is managed by Bill and Bev Shaw, friends of his daughter’s. He helps her in the farm.
One morning, they take a walk and when they
return they are ambushed by two men and a youngster. Lucy is being raped and assaulted, David is brutally attacked and the dogs are slaughtered in their cages. They steal and ruin the house. Petrus is nowhere to be found during the attack.
Lucy is drawn away from her father. She doesn’t want to talk about what she’s been through. David suspects Petrus but says nothing. He works in the farm, the house and the garden. He does things that Lucy isn’t capable of doing anymore. He continues to volunteer in Bev’s clinic. He starts to recover, but Lucy does not.
One evening Petrus invites David and Lucy to a party at his house and they consent. In the party, Lucy recognizes the youngster which attacked them. David wants to call the police, but Lucy and Petrus are against it. Petrus offers Lucy his protection. David
tries to convince Lucy to leave the farm and pay Petrus to run it, but Lucy refuses. She makes it clear that she could not leave the place.
Meanwhile, David tries to progress in the Byron project but doesn’t succeed. His thoughts return to the assault over and over again. He spends most of his time in the animal clinic, and starts an affair with Bev. His relationship with Lucy isn’t as it used to be and he returns to Cape Town, to his house and what is left of his life. He tries to work on his Byron project.
When David visits Lucy he discovers that she is pregnant from one of her assailants. The discovery shocks him, but also causes him to return and live beside his daughter.
This story occurs in South Africa towards the end of the millennium and describes a personal story between father and daughter in a tangled, hard and violent reality.
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