Cry Baby

As he nears his fifth birthday, Sam’s curious dreams of a lost child begin to steal quietly into his waking state. Sam’s mother, Grace, watches with growing fear the disturbing changes taking place in her charming, spirited son – the fighting at school, the bed-wetting, the meteor showers of defiance. Grace is determined to find out what lies behind Sam’s nightmares, and the search will take her deeper and deeper into layers of love and bondage buried beneath the surface of the family, and into its molten heart.

Cry Baby is a story about boyhood and motherhood, about what binds families, the past to the present, about suffocation and deliverance. It is at once a stinging satirical slap across the face of barren suburbia and a poignant hymn to the extraordinary beauty in ordinary lives.

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Reviews

“[Cry Baby] forced me to face certain truths about my life and how other people may see it … It’s also a story of how we can find happiness in the madness, but only if we know where to look”
– Mommy blogger, Belinda Mountain. Read full review here

“Liebenberg draws a picture of societal pressures that are sometimes funny …. but also lethal. Cry Baby is not always a comfortable read but it is a potent one”
– THE WITNESS Read full review here 

“A touch of the supernatural gives tension and a kick to this perceptive and often amusing tale of life in Joburg’s fast lane … told with an easy and racy charm”
– THE STAR 

“Sly perception and real humanity on almost every page”
– CAPE TIMES 

“Liebenberg’s sharp, satirical observations give the book its energy … the social landscape, which Liebenberg nails, is uncomfortably relatable. Read it and weep.”
– TIMES LIVE Read full review here

“A rich and beautifully textured satire of suburban life”
– Andrei van Wyk, FOURWAYS REVIEW 

“An outstanding novel”
– SARIE MAGAZINE 

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