Detailed item info | Synopsis | Raised in Rhodesia during the Rhodesian War (1971-1979), this memoirist expresses the violence of African politics and the African landscape from her perspective as a white citizen born in England. Insects, landmines, leopards, and terrorists imprint this coming-of-age story. A New York Times Notable Book of 2002.
| | Size | | Length: | 301 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in. | | Width: | 6.3 in. | | Thickness: | 1.2 in. | | Weight: | 18.4 oz. |
| | Publisher's Note | When the ship veered into the Cape of Good Hope, Mum caught the spicy, heady scent of Africa on the changing wind. She smelled the people: raw onions and salt, the smell of people who are not afraid to eat meat, and who smoke fish over open fires on the beach and who pound maize into meal and who work out-of-doors. She held me up to face the earthy air, so that the fingers of warmth pushed back my black curls of hair, and her pale green eyes went clear-glassy.
“Smell that,” she whispered, “that’s home.”
Vanessa was running up and down the deck, unaccountably wild for a child usually so placid. Intoxicated already.
I took in a faceful of African air and fell instantly into a fever.
In Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with visceral authenticity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller’s endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller’s debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.
From 1972 to 1990, Alexandra Fuller–known to friends and family as Bobo–grew up on several farms in southern and central Africa. Her father joined up on the side of the white government in the Rhodesian civil war, and was often away fighting against the powerful black guerilla factions. Her mother, in turn, flung herself at their African life and its rugged farm work with the same passion and maniacal energy she brought to everything else. Though she loved her children, she was no hand-holder and had little tolerance for neediness. She nurtured her daughters in other ways: She taught them, by example, to be resilient and self-sufficient, to have strong wills and strong opinions, and to embrace life wholeheartedly, despite and because of difficult circumstances. And she instilled in Bobo, particularly, a love of reading and of storytelling that proved to be her salvation.
A worthy heir to Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, Alexandra Fuller writes poignantly about a girl becoming a woman and a writer against a backdrop of unrest, not just in her country but in her home. But Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is more than a survivor’s story. It is the story of one woman’s unbreakable bond with a continent and the people who inhabit it, a portrait lovingly realized and deeply felt.
| | Industry reviews | "[A] sensuous new memoir....The Africa of DON'T LET'S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT is an endlessly fascinating and dangerous place...To her credit, Fuller neither apologizes for her parents nor editorializes against them. Instead she gives us her own subtle political awakening as she experienced it, gradually and without open rebellion, in a society where repugnant attitudes weren't decisions but heirlooms...Where memoirs have it all over fiction is in their ability to tell us how other people actually live, and at this Fuller excels. Not even the smells of the place elude her prodigious powers of memory and description. Add in Africa's inexhaustible bounty of unforgettable images, and the result is a saga sure to mesmerize every kid who grew up hooked on DAKTARI."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - David Kipen (01/30/2001)
"An illuminating, even thrillingly fresh perspective on the continents much-discussed postcolonial problems."
Kirkus Reviews (10/01/2001)
"A classic is born...."
Publishers Weekly (10/22/2001)
"At her best in sketching the physical sensations of her homeland, Fuller makes the bone-melting heat rise palpably off the page, captures the impenetrable African night's silence, convinces us of her deep-rooted connection."
Globe and Mail (Toronto) - Daneet Steffens (01/26/2002)
"This is the story of someone born on the 'bad side' of history, who presents her account with wit and verve and no apologies. Of the 'bad side,' however, there can be no doubt...This then is not your average white tale out of Africa, or not the kind that usually makes it into print, but this is precisely its strength."
New York Times Book Review - Stephen Clingman (01/27/2002)
"How does anyone survive such a childhood intact, let alone come to write about it with the precision and tenderness Fuller brings to her story?...The Africa of this beautiful book is not easy to forget. Despite, or maybe even because of, the snakes, the leopards, the malaria and the sheer craziness of its human inhabitants, often violent but pulsing with life, it seems like a fine place to grow up, at least if you are as strong, passionate, sharp and gifted as Alexandra Fuller."
Chicago Tribune Books - Jill Laurie Goodman (02/24/2002)
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