Hum If You Don't Know the Words

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words (2017) is a historical fiction novel by Bianca Marais. Marais was born in South Africa in the year the novel starts, 1976, when apartheid’s strict racial segregation rules governed the country. Like the main character, Robin, Marais was raised in part by a nanny who was Black. The novel explores themes like the concept of karma, the instinct to run from pain, and the importance of bearing witness to tragedy.

This guide uses the Kindle version published by Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Content Warning: This book contains depictions of racism and violence.

Plot Summary

In Boksburg, a suburb of Johannesburg, nine-year-old Robin Conrad lives with her mother, father, and twin sister, Cat, in a neighborhood for families of the men who work in mines. Their maid, Mabel, is a Black woman from QwaQwa. In Transkei, an area farther south in South Africa, a middle-aged mother named Beauty, who lives with her two teenage sons, leaves to retrieve her daughter, who went north to study and live with her uncle in Soweto. The novel switches between Robin and Beauty’s points of view.

While Robin’s her parents are at an event, the police arrive at the door.