Title: Distorted is the View
Author:
Publisher: QuillInInk Press
Genre: Literary Fiction, Family Life
Published: June 24, 2026
Pages: 299 pages
Distorted is the View takes place in South Africa and centers on the Klassen family as they navigate several changes to their family dynamic, each change a thread threatening to unravel and reveal its secrets. Sheena, her two girls, Sam and Gugu, and their nanny, Teresa, move to a farm to rebuild their lives.
George does not move with them and without his family he is forced to face the consequences of his actions, sending him spiraling and searching for solutions at the bottom of a bottle.
The most powerful parts of this story, though, live in the margins of what is plainly revealed. In the pauses, the silences, and the moments that resist explanation, the author captures what a direct statement might diminish by naming it outright. We get to sit with what the family is going through and experience it with them.
The writing is very poetic, and I found myself pausing often to let the words marinate as I moved through the chapters. This book doesn’t tell you what to do. It simply allows you to be a witness.
The way the author articulates how a child’s mind processes trauma and the subtle ways that they change, not fully understanding how to put voice to what they know, is well done. For Sam, she wets the bed.
The way that Teresa moves through the house, carrying this family in ways they themselves might not at once notice, for she had “learned early that a woman survived by knowing what to show and what to swallow.”
The way that we can see George’s spiral before it’s directly mentioned. And the way that Sheena carried a calm that could be mistaken for peace, and the quiet way the people judged her before they knew her story.
“Sheena’s calm wasn’t peace. It was a fortress with stones laid one block at a time.”
Sheena is a strong, hard-working businesswoman who seems poised to carry the world on her shoulders with ease. She runs the farm and the store, and, with Teresa’s help, the children.
“But she had spent months swallowing loneliness until it had hardened inside her.”
When Sheena starts peeling the wallpaper, we know that there is much more grief underneath her strong exterior. I loved the way peeling became a symbol of peeling away the superficial colors of the outward to see the cracks and the ugly truth behind it. And then, when she stood naked in front of the naked and bare wall, it felt like a kind of freedom. The relief of seeing things the way they truly are. The relief of a no longer distorted view.
“That night, she peeled the wallpaper with a stubbornness that felt like prayer she needed to keep the family’s pulse alive.”
This book had several characters and switched to different points of view, but they all work. Each character is well developed. As soon as Ben entered the story, I knew why he was there. Again, it’s in the subtleties.
“Mr. Klaasen left a gap so wide that he had stepped into it without thinking.”
And we’ve all known somebody like the principal’s wife, MamBhele, with her annoying self.
“MamBhele used the rumours to warn against city people, whom she deemed had lots of secrets.”
I didn’t expect the book to end when it did, but I like it. The way George held Sheena’s face and the powerful pact they made without words. Again, this book lives in the in-between places. I imagine that if it were a TV show, you’d have to pay attention to all the little details to truly appreciate it.
For a first novel, this is well done.
Ratings
- Plot Movement / Strength: 4/5
- Entertainment Factor: 4/5
- Characterization: 5/5
- Authenticity / Believable: 4/5
- Thought-Provoking: 5/5
Overall: 4/5
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