Professor David Lurie, who has been divorced twice, has a brief affair with a girl who is a student in his Romantic Poets class at a university in Cape Town, South Africa. When the girl tells on him, he pleads guilty and loses his job. He retreats to his daughter’s home in a more remote part of Africa, but finds it hard to adjust to her way of life, especially after they are attacked by three black men who rape his daughter and steal his car.

The theme of this story has to do with the cultural differences between whites and blacks in South Africa. The professor condemns the rape of his daughter by western standards, but she refuses to follow his advise and leave her home and the people she’s lived around so long.

Although the racial conflict in the story is compelling, the development of the main character is not. It is difficult to relate the professor’s various interests to the theme of the story: a strong desire for sex, taking care of the remains of dogs which have been put to sleep, and his attempts to write an opera about the English poet Lord Byron’s mistress Teresa. The title of the novel, Disgrace, is also confusing.

This book was first published in 1999.