“South Africa had fault lines the way other countries have rivers and streams, and you learned early which ones you could cross and which ones you couldn’t,” Leon Lazarus writes in his just-published book of essays, “Barking at Dogs.” “English and Afrikaans. Jew and gentile. City and country. Left and right, with race running underneath all of it like the water table.
“Then you emigrate, and some of those lines simply don’t survive the flight.”
Culture OC interviewed Lazarus recently via Zoom from his home in San Diego. He spent many years in Orange County after coming to the U.S. in 2000 with his family, and he still works here.
Writing has always been a passion, and at this stage of life, as he nears retirement, Lazarus felt it was time to share his personal experiences and his thoughts on his complex, troubled and contradictory native land.
Culture OC: Why did you decide to write this book now? What’s motivating you?
Leon Lazarus: The real answer lies in one’s age, you know, when you get to the magic number 60. You start thinking about things a little differently. A while ago I had a chance meeting with (someone) who came to a lecture I gave. She said, “I really enjoyed that and it sounds like you can write. So why don’t you join us at the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild?” And I gave it a try. And it kind of worked out.
COC: You’ve spent your career in marketing. You’ve spent your time writing. What happened when you started working with other writers at the guild?
LL: I discovered that I still had a voice. I tried to write a book straight out of college. And, of course, that got the round file. It was absolutely horrible. I didn’t know anything. And every time I tried to write that book, you know, I’d go back to it year after year and I’d start again. Groundhog Day. So I just dumped it and didn’t do anything for a while. And then once I met these people, they were like, “Oh, you have a voice. You can write stuff. Why don’t you try a short story?” And I did. And that’s where I got my inspiration.
COC: What was your experience when you first came to America?
LL: I was in my 30s with a young family, and America’s unforgiving, especially to immigrants. You’re putting in 12, 14, 16 hours a day. There was one point where I started an agency with a friend of mine and I ended up working sometimes many days at a stretch. And (my wife) would come by in the morning with a change of clothes. I’d go over to the gym, shower, change, go back to work. And that’s how it went, you know. There was no way I could focus on writing a book.
COC: Despite your book’s often heavy topics, it’s laced with humor. That was surprising.
LL: I get asked this all the time. “Why the humor?” I’ve heard lots of war photographers and former soldiers talk about how in the darkest moments, that’s where you find the funniest moments, right? Because if you don’t, you kind of lose the plot. And I think that applies to South Africa. We saw some terrible, terrible stuff go down. But, you know, some of it was just hilarious. I mean, the stupidity of it all…
COC: You write that there are many lines of delineation and many subgroups in South Africa even among the white population. It must have been a very complicated society to live in with lots of written and unwritten rules that were being broken all the time.
LL: All over the place. Black people weren’t allowed into areas where white people lived after a certain time of day. You had to have a pass for a Black person to be allowed to stay in a white area. If you didn’t have that, they would beat the hell out of you, throw you in the back of the van, you were arrested, and sometimes you just never reappeared.
COC: In the book, you described a scene where an older Black couple was beaten right in front of you.
LL: That changed me. It really did. Mm-hmm. But, you know, at the time, my parents-in-law would do things like … there was a sort of underground in the neighborhoods. So if the police arrived and there were people who weren’t allowed to be there, they would go to my mother-in-law’s house, and my mother-in-law and my father-in-law would take them out to a store room in the back of the house with a lock on the outside. They would put them in there, and they would padlock the outside. So when (the authorities) came by to do a search, they would try the padlock and go, “Oh, it’s locked from the outside. There’s obviously no one in there,” and move on. And this happened all over the place. There were these weird moments where there was enormous bravery, you know?
COC: You were part of the Jewish community in South Africa. Where were you in the pecking order?
LL: My father tells me stories of how the Jewish kids would go to the park to play and the children of the Afrikaner Broederbond would appear. And the Broederbond at the time was essentially an underground movement that was allied with the Nazi government. The Broederbond kids would beat the hell out of them. So there was always somebody watching to make sure that they weren’t on the way. There was a lot of anti-Semitism in South Africa. It’s a very strange thing because you’re Jewish, but you’re white. So you enjoy the privileges of being white, but they still hate your guts because you’re a Jew.
COC: When you lived in Orange County you encountered a lot of fellow white South African emigres. What’s your theory about why they chose to live here?
LL: Safety was the big thing. One of the triggers that got me to leave South Africa was guns. After the Civil War ended, Nelson Mandela was released in the ’90s and we had this big conference to figure out what to do next. (The Convention for a Democratic South Africa began in December 1991.) And then came the first fair elections in ’94. So there was a lot of hope for the country. But obviously, what happens after a border war where thousands of people die on both sides, you have a South Africa where there’s an enormous population of former fighters who are now living without any income. And after a while, they start to see that actually nothing’s changing. There’s still no food. There’s still no jobs. Nobody’s getting a free house. And the gun that they brought back with them suddenly became a source of income. So crime just skyrocketed. I carried a gun. My wife carried a gun. And there were instances where we had to take up those guns in self-defense. I never fired a shot, but it came very, very close.
COC: How did you relate to other South Africans living in Orange County after you arrived?
LL: I found that over the years, probably my closest relationships in Southern California were with Americans. I’m not quite sure why that is, but it just worked out like that. I’ve worked with South Africans. I have a South African circle of friends, but my closest friends have always been Americans. Still, (South Africans are) a great group of people to know and be involved with. When you watch a rugby game on a Saturday morning in certain places, you get your full dose of South African. It’s the food, it’s the camaraderie, it’s the songs as well.
COC: Where is your writing going to take you next?
LL: I’ve got a post-apocalyptic novella that I’m working on and a couple of children’s books that I want to publish. I have a very diverse set of interests. I’m very, very interested in science, futurism. (Lazarus holds up a thick manuscript and laughs.) I have a young adult science fiction novel that I have to edit the hell out of and, well, look at it. I could never sell it at 110,000 words. So, one way or another, I’m going to be busy.
Related Stories
Irvine’s Great Park Advances – With Some Growing Pains
Back From the Dead, Wicked Lit Returns to Haunt Orange County
Honda-Ya and Beyond: Three O.C. Izakayas That Prove Japanese Pub Culture Is Here to Stay 
Iranian Play ‘Blind Runner’ Faces Its Own Border Battle Recent Stories
‘What Every Girl Should Know’ at The Wayward Artist
‘The 39 Steps’ at Laguna Playhouse
Bluewater Grill Marks a Milestone With Its 30th AnniversaryIrvine’s Great Park Advances – With Some Growing Pains
At Culture OC, our mission is to engage with a diverse range of Orange County’s artistic and cultural communities at every level by publishing news and critical analysis to encourage interest, participation, fellowship and dialogue.