"Michael is a respected and haunted South African corporate lawyer - the narrator of this sweeping, intimate and intricate exploration of the plurality and mystery of things : love, grief, fate, lust - but most of all life. Nthikeng Mohlele once again delves into head-cracking and bruising questions, in this coming-out- of and against-age story; told with humour, beauty and calculated rage. Brimming with delicacy and authorial thunder, this part campus novel, part philosophical epistle, is one man's rebellion against 'life as we know it'. Rusty Bell is an appallingly wise examination of the perils of being human - by a writer who knows the beauty and savagery of words."--Back page.