July’s People, published in the 1981, is set in an imminent South African future in which riots have broken out across the country and evolved into an all out black liberation revolution. With the support of militias from neighboring countries, ports are seized, airports are bombed, and all white people are in danger. Bam and Maureen, with their three young children, have no choice but to flee Johannesburg, hiding in the back of a truck with their black servant, July.
They pack their bags in a rush, forgetting many things, including extra clothes, though they do bring Bam’s bird rifle (not a powerful gun, but something). After three days of driving, they arrive at a rural African settlement. They find themselves forced to adapt to a primitive life, living in mud huts, gathering wild greens, and coping with insects and the muck of rainstorms. On top of this, they are now the guests of July, their young black man who has served them for fifteen years in their modern house in Johannesburg with many rooms and a swimming pool.
As they settle in and try to make sense of their situation, tension begins to rise between Maureen and July. While Maureen considers herself a liberal person, opposed to apartheid and in support of black liberation, she becomes mistrustful of July now that he has more power than her. One night soon after arriving, July takes the couple's truck—the bakkie—and drives away from the settlement with his friend. Maureen and Bam panic and they argue with each other in the confines of the mud hut, airing all the pent up resent that they have for each other. Late at night, July returns.
Maureen is unsettled by the fact that July keeps the keys to the bakkie. But as she tries to ask for them back, July realizes that she doesn’t trust him with the keys. July is upset by this. He feels that he’s still their servant and he’s doing exactly as he would at their home, where he had the keys to their house and they trusted him with everything. Here, they can’t drive away from the settlement without being in danger, so it only makes sense for him to use the bakkie. The trouble for Maureen is that he didn’t ask. This tension breaks out in a small argument and July feels insulted by Maureen, who in turn learns that he always felt her to be passive aggressive and controlling.
Days pass in which the family adapts to the primitive life. Maureen picks wild greens with July’s wife and the other women. Bam goes out to hunt warthog with the bird rifle. He shows July’s friend Daniel how to use the rifle. They get a warthog and roast meat. They endlessly turn the dial on an old radio, searching for an English or Afrikaans voice with any information about what’s happening. They only pick up fragments.
After an ambiguous stretch of time in which Maureen recalls her childhood in the extreme apartheid conditions of a gold mining town, the chief of July’s people hears of the white people hiding in his area and he calls them to him. They try to clean themselves up and then July and his friend Daniel accompany them to see the chief. The chief asks Bam everything he knows about the war. Bam tells him that black people are finally rising up against their white oppressors. He tells him that militias from Mozambique and Botswana are coming to their aid. The chief asks about Bam’s gun. He wants to learn to shoot. He doesn’t want other African tribal people invading his territory. Bam and Maureen are shocked to hear that the chief is opposed to black liberation. He wants a return to the apartheid status quo.
Dismayed, they drive back with July. July speaks angrily about the idiocy of the chief, saying that if white people invaded his territory he would give them everything; but if it’s black people, he wants to kill them. Bam and Maureen listen to July’s anger and when they come back to their hut, Maureen says that she thinks July was expressing anger with himself: he helped white people and not his own people. Maureen and Bam feel that they have to leave. They decide to flee, but they don’t know how or where.
A couple of nights pass and a man with a music box comes to the settlement. All the people come out to dance and drink. Maureen and Bam go back to their hut and discover that the gun is gone. Maureen runs out and confronts July. But she can see in his face that he’s telling the truth when he says he didn’t take it. He doesn’t understand why she’s so upset though. What does she need it for? They realize that it must’ve been Daniel who took it. Daniel is gone.
Time passes. Maureen is dull, sewing in the hut. The heat is oppressive. The insects are everywhere. A noise comes from somewhere distant, and then it grows louder. A helicopter is overhead. All the people of the settlement run out. They’ve never seen a helicopter so close. It starts to lower down but rises up again. The people are screaming. The helicopter flies over the river. Maureen starts to run toward the sound. She leaves her family as she wades across the river. She hears the helicopter landing behind the trees. She runs to it. The novel closes here.
