Michener has been known to rush through millennia before this, and in The Covenant, set against the backdrop of history from the formation of the earth's crust to the present day, he polishes off a dozen generations of good men and true…. [The] narrative proper commences somewhere between the 15th and 17th centuries, involving three families [Black, Dutch, and English] …, whose intertwined lives embrace the whole of South African history, even if it means manipulating episodes to suit the preconceived popular thesis….

Unfortunately Michener's "White" account of Black life (ranging from Khoisan, i.e. "Bushman" and "Hottentot," to Zulu and Xhosa) remains uncomfortably shallow. In the earlier chapters dialogue tends to the "Me Tarzan" variety; Zulu names designate Xhosa characters (imagine a novel dealing with French characters called Ludwig and Kurt!); and the account seldom probes more deeply than the folkloristic.

As for the mainstream of narrative, such...