But Trevor had a deeply religious mother who refused to live her life according to the laws of the country. Trevor was born when she persuaded a Swiss friend to father her child, found a secretarial job when black South African women could only work as a domestic and bought her own house in a white neighborhood. Trevor was then categorized as colored, evidence of a crime committed between a white man and black woman.
Trevor never felt he fitted into any group and spent most of his childhood on his own getting into trouble, making money wherever he could (illegally copying CDs and selling them). Violence, poverty and abuse threatened the mother/son team, but their love for each other got them through the tough times.
Apart from his humor, the book is a mixture of sadness for those who were persecuted and the idiocracy of apartheid. Chinese people were classified as black, Japanese were classified as white (the government wanted to establish good relations with the Japanese).
