Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
Alexandra Fuller - Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (2001)
Alexandra "Bobo" Fuller is a British-born woman who has lived most of her life in Africa. In this book she writes about her childhood in three African countries, the life of her tobacco farmer parents and deaths of three of her infant siblings, including both of her brothers. And lots of gruesome facts of life, sometimes in graphic detail.
Fuller spent most of her childhood in Africa, first in Rhodesia, during the civil war that erupted after Ian Smith's unilateral declaration of independence in 1966. During those years her parents were armed almost to the teeth. Her mother carried a submachine gun but was a lousy shot - she demolished a kitchen when she tried to kill a snake with it. Her father participated in the battles against the African guerrillas. Her parents had very firm opinions of white supremacy without being storybook villains.
Fuller writes about those years from the child's point of view. Being a white girl, she was fortunate - unlike many African children who guerrillas recruited to their ranks. She only had to learn to load weapons and duck - she never even witnessed fighting.
Couple of years after the end of the war, Fullers moved to Malawi under the reign of President-for-Life Hastings Kamuzu Banda . When they signed a two-year contract to take care of a tobacco plantation, government also slipped them a servant who was spying on them and not particularly clandestinely at that. Two years were enough and the family moved to Zambia.
Fuller describes the smells and tastes of Africa in almost a graphic detail - and the smells include those of blood, urine and excrement. According to her, after her years in Africa the western world smells practically sterile. Fuller describes only the facts and lets them tell their story. Just tells how it was and how it used to be. In gruesome detail at times. In fact, she does not describe her university life at all.
Fuller does not tell everything in chronological order - most of the book includes anecdotes and snippets of life. How her infant sister drowned to a duck pool. How her parents became very moody after that. How an African servant mutilated an African maid and stole everything. How the first African boy came to a previously all-white boarding school. How Robert Mugabe's government eventually confiscated their farm in newly independent Zimbabwe. How all of their dogs died for different reasons in Malawi. How her mother cried, breasts full of milk, after the death of her newborn, and began a long descend to manic-depressive alcoholism.
Book ends with Fuller's marriage to her American husband - and their wedding that continued riotously for two days after they had left for their honeymoon.
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Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
Alexandra Fuller
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Alexandra "Bobo" Fuller is a British-born woman who has lived most of her life in Africa. In this book she writes about her childhood in three African countries, the life of her tobacco farmer parents and deaths of three of her infant siblings, including both of her brothers. And lots of gruesome facts of life, sometimes in graphic detail.
Fuller spent most of her childhood in Africa, first in Rhodesia, during the civil war that erupted after Ian Smith's unilateral declaration of independence in 1966. During those years her parents were armed almost to the teeth. Her mother carried a submachine gun but was a lousy shot - she demolished a kitchen when she tried to kill a snake with it. Her father participated in the battles against the African guerrillas. Her parents had very firm opinions of white supremacy without being storybook villains.
Fuller writes about those years from the child's point of view. Being a white girl, she was fortunate - unlike many African children who guerrillas recruited to their ranks. She only had to learn to load weapons and duck - she never even witnessed fighting.
Couple of years after the end of the war, Fullers moved to Malawi under the reign of President-for-Life Hastings Kamuzu Banda . When they signed a two-year contract to take care of a tobacco plantation, government also slipped them a servant who was spying on them and not particularly clandestinely at that. Two years were enough and the family moved to Zambia.
Fuller describes the smells and tastes of Africa in almost a graphic detail - and the smells include those of blood, urine and excrement. According to her, after her years in Africa the western world smells practically sterile. Fuller describes only the facts and lets them tell their story. Just tells how it was and how it used to be. In gruesome detail at times. In fact, she does not describe her university life at all.
Fuller does not tell everything in chronological order - most of the book includes anecdotes and snippets of life. How her infant sister drowned to a duck pool. How her parents became very moody after that. How an African servant mutilated an African maid and stole everything. How the first African boy came to a previously all-white boarding school. How Robert Mugabe's government eventually confiscated their farm in newly independent Zimbabwe. How all of their dogs died for different reasons in Malawi. How her mother cried, breasts full of milk, after the death of her newborn, and began a long descend to manic-depressive alcoholism.
Book ends with Fuller's marriage to her American husband - and their wedding that continued riotously for two days after they had left for their honeymoon.
lj book reviews
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
Alexandra Fuller
make your own book badge | read lj reviews of this book