Too Late the Phalarope

Too Late the Phalarope is the second novel of Alan Paton, the South African author who is best known for writing Cry, the Beloved Country. It was published in 1953, and was the last novel he published before Ah, but Your Land Is Beautiful in 1981.

First US edition (publ. Scribner)

The summary on the dust jacket of the first UK edition reads, in part; 'The setting is again South Africa, but the tragedy this time is of a white man who, for complicated reasons, some of them not unconnected with his childhood and training, succumbs to the very temptations he might have been thought strong enough to resist. His downfall is recorded by his father's sister who watched the train of events, half foreseeing the danger yet unable to prevent it, and now in anguish blames herself.'[1]

The main character is Afrikaner policeman Pieter van Vlaanderen. While usually enforcing the country's laws, he eventually breaks the apartheid law outlawing sex between blacks and whites.

A stage adaptation by Robert Yale Libott opened at the Belasco Theater on Broadway on October 11, 1956. It was directed by Mary K. Frank and starred Barry Sullivan. It ran for 36 performances.[2]

Phalaropes are shore birds found in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.