The book centers on Mehring, a wealthy, white, anglophone South African businessman. He's part of the problem, stuck in the past (or more accurately in the perpetuation of the present, because it's true that apartheid lasted for another 20 years after this book was written). He's purchased a farm 30 miles outside Johannesburg, and over the course of the book he develops a strong attachment to the land, while moving further and further from his human connections.
Much of the book consists of Mehring's internal running monologue, memories of conversations, and things he wants to say but doesn't. Among his recurring thought trains are memories of conversations with an ex lover. He had an affair with a married activist who has been forced to leave the country, and he has not gotten over it. We only ever get his perspective, but I found the dynamic of mutual disrespect very interesting. She, an anti-apartheid leftist and he, a willing beneficiary of apartheid. Each dismissive of the other as simplistic. Yet, clearly his feelings for her are stronger than he lets on, or even accepts to himself.
He has a troubled relationship with his teenage son, a liberal who sympathizes with Namibian independence, and has a friendly relationship with the farm workers and local shopkeepers. He has imaginary running conversations with his son, as he tries to understand him, but he's never able to vocalize his thoughts when he's actually face-to-face with him.
Occasionally the book picks up the narrative outside Mehring's head: amidst the goings on among the African workers on his farm; recounting the conversations among the Indian family who run the local shop. These interludes give the reader a glimpse of how Mehring is really seen by others. They also show the insider/outsider dynamic of language. Mehring doesn't seem to see his own exclusion when others are speaking their own language, or to even be able to imagine that anything said in those languages might be of interest to him.
