Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller

Alexandra Fuller was born in England but moved to central Africa with her family in 1972, when she was two. She raised there in poverty, mostly on a tobacco and cattle farm in Zimbabwe during the time of the Rhodesian civil war. Their trips to town were made in a mine-proof Land Rover, her parents holding submachine guns as they drove. Fuller presents her racist, alcoholic and insane mother quite unvarnished in this memoir. It is at turns funny, poignant and horrifying.

I listened to the Recorded Books audiobook which was expertly narrated by Lisette Lecat (10 hours, 15 minutes). Since Fuller is only recording her life into her early 20s, it makes sense that she closes with these lines: "This is not a full circle. It's life carrying on. It's the next breath we take. It's the choice we make to get on with it."

Fuller's latest work, Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness, is said to focus more on her mother. I've no doubt that it's every bit as fascinating as Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.

For more stories about White girlhoods in Africa, check out my list on the Edmonton Public Library website. Child of Dandelions by Shenaaz Nanji is a novel set in Uganda in 1972, when everyone who wasn't ethnic-African was expelled from that country, even those citizens who had been born in Uganda. Another possible readalike is Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace, a fast-paced novel about bullying and racial tensions based on the author's experiences in an elite boarding school in Zimbabwe in the 1980s.

4 comments:

avisannschild said...

I have this one, but haven't read it yet. It sounds fascinating! I've heard some negative things about her next book (it must be Scribbling the Cat), though I can't remember what they were at the moment.

Lindy said...

Fuller is another author that I'm sorry to miss at the Vancouver Writers Festival. She's paired with Aminatta Forna at an event Friday evening that sounds fabulous. I'll bring a clone with me next time...

avisannschild said...

Ooh, my sister reviewed one of Aminatta Forna's books recently on my blog. Too bad you're missing them!

Lindy said...

I enjoyed Brogan's review. I started Forna's Memory of Love but had to put it down because I wasn't in the right mood for it. I'll get back to it one of these days, I hope. Her prose is so beautiful, even when her subject is harrowing.