The Grass is Singing is a powerful novel that explores several poignant topics, including human relationships, power struggles, and the effects of racism. The novel is set in Southern Rhodesia (present-day South Africa) and explores the lives of its inhabitants during white rules in the county. The novel was Lessing’s debut novel and helped to propel her to the literary success. Her treatment of desire, drive, and need regarding individuals, communities and even nations is masterful, and comprehensive.

The narrative concerns the events of Mary Turner’s life. From Chapter One, the reader is aware that the self-confident Mary has been murdered by her house servant, Moses, who has confessed to the killing and been arrested. He awaits trial and will be executed for the crime. From this shocking revelation, the narrator explains how Mary and her husband, Dick Turner came to be strongly disliked by “the district,” the white farming community that they were a part of. Though there are many reasons for them being disliked, it is hinted that some reasons—which are in fact tied to the murder—are not discussed by anyone. This fact piques the reader’s interest in finding out just what this community knows concerning Mary Turner and her relationship with her house servant, Moses.

The narrative explains how Mary Turner and Dick Turner live in abject poverty, further angering their neighbors who took great pains to ensure that whites did not appear poor, or in any way like the despised natives. The Turners’ poverty is a slight on the district. The narrative then introduces Charlie Slatter, who is instrumental is handling the case of Mary Tuner’s death and who has more of an interest in matters than is initially revealed. Charlie races to the farm, interrogates the manager, Tony Marston, then finds a confused (and insane) Dick Turner wandering about. It is revealed that Charlie hated Mary Turner for some reason. When the sergeant, Denham, arrives to the Turners’ farm and finds Charlie, he too shows Mary the same hatred. Marston is fresh to the land and does not understand this hatred. He also does not understand why the two men seem to be conspiring to cover-up the possible true nature of the murder. He has lived with the Turners and knows things that he should not know. He is slighted by the men, however, and leaves the farming community for good due to the trauma of the murder and its aftermath.

From Mary’s death, Dick’s insanity and Marston’s departure, the narrative then flashes back to the beginning of Mary and Dick’s time together to flesh out their lives and explain how they ended up in the tragedy that is explained in the first chapter. The narrative shows Mary as a happy, independent woman working in the city. Her carefree life is shattered when she overhears a group of friends gossiping about her bleak marriage prospects. This gossip unhinges Mary, and she sets out to find a husband. Meanwhile, Dick Turner arrives in the city to kill time and sees Mary in a theater, falling in love at first sight. Dick Turner hates city life and all that it entails; he wants to marry and have children, but is hampered by bad luck and poverty. The two meet, have a rocky first start, but marry nonetheless. Dick takes Mary away to the farm, and their lives begin to unravel soon after.

Dick’s troubles as an incompetent farmer couple with Mary’s growing hatred of farm life and the natives she is forced to live amongst. She has tried to flee poverty her entire life, but living with Dick forces her back into the role of her mother, a spurned woman. This cripples Mary. Mary’s disillusionment with life begins to manifest in several personality breaks, including an attempt at running away and, later, a devastating sexual relationship with a native, Moses, whom the reader knows as her murderer. Dick and Mary’s lives unravel, and in time, their expectations of life and views on reality also unravel. They both go seemingly mad, and the result is a shocking turn of events that brings the narrative full circle.

Lessing’s novel is a critique on social mores as much as it is a critique on individual values. The Turners and their hopes are representative of the hopes of many individuals and couples. More importantly, the narrative shows the lengths people are willing to go to in order to achieve their hopes and dreams, and what some people fall victim to when their dreams are shattered and they have nothing else to hold on to. Madness is viewed in a new light, as a refuge. The case is made that the perhaps the mad are vindicated in some light, with the reader ultimately left to determine if vindication is possible given the circumstances.