Alexandra Fuller's Memoir, "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: A Fascinating Look at an African Childhood"

Barb: Book is ok but hard to read

United States on Oct 09, 2023

Joan: I was buying this as a second copy because I keep loaning out the one I got at a used book store. This book is so original and well written...... reminds me of Dylan Thomas poetry a bit. I immediately ordered all her other books and they are not as good as this one in my opinion. This one is written in present tense and, like Dylan Thomas, there is much that goes unexplained that creates a sense of chaos that is appropriate for her life as a child. In other books, she writes about the same subject in past tense and I find it rather a yawn. Her mother, who, in this book, is lovable and hilarious, in the books in past tense, seems abusive and irresponsible (which she is.) In past tense, descriptions of her sound like tattling (and make you want to call Child Protective Services.) In this book, I was along for the ride and absolutely loving it. It is amazing that I can love an author in one book and, literally, put the other books in the For Sale pile. Didn't even finish them, and can't wait to reread this one.

United States on May 22, 2023

weltweit: A powerful story written in a powerful language. Painful and true. But definitely not without humor and irony.

Germany on Dec 06, 2022

Richard Middleton: This is a wonderfully written account of what it was like to grow up in an Africa which was changing extraordinarily fast. Not an Africa of the earlier pioneering settlers (the "Flame Trees of Thika" era), but one where white families who had been there for a long time were selling up or abandoning their farms (or being dispossessed), or sometimes depending on farm managers such as the author's father to try to keep things going for a bit longer. The Fullers were not rich tyrannical brutal snobs, just people who adored Africa and farming, and who were no more racist than would be inevitable at that time. To expect a child to condemn them for their attitudes is ridiculous; the book is far more genuine because the way they behaved is reported through a child's eyes - that's just the way things are (as a small child growing up in London during WWII I accepted rationing, very few toys, sleeping in a "bomb-proof" closet under the stairs, and all the "inconveniences" of war as the way the world worked, not worth debating). The father is loving but can't seem to find success, the mother is mentally unstable and an alcoholic (losing 3 out of 5 children, with another hinted miscarriage,...

United States on Aug 31, 2021

Joanne Hamilton: The first few chapters were very poorly edited and didn't quite flow. As this was a book club read, I persevered and really engaged with the author. It is a very evocative tale of true living in Africa during difficult times, both natural and man made. The senses are awakened with very descriptive passages which never failed to captivate. Family life and all its ups and downs are clearly and sensitively seen through the eyes of the author as she grows up with the story. Ultimately, it is a very sad tale with emphasis on survival, as the new generation marks the end of one era and perhaps the start of a new tale!

United Kingdom on Dec 07, 2018

David George Clarke: Alexandra Fuller's story of her life as a child growing up in Rhodesia and various other East African countries in the late sixties, seventies and eighties is a gritty, uncompromising account of a family determined to continue in the colonial tradition of white farmers, despite the huge political and social changes occurring around them. It has been criticised by some for not being apologist for the often racist attitudes of Bobo's parents and those of other whites who drift in and out of the account. But that is missing the point. This story is told entirely in the voice of whatever age Bobo is at the time - mainly a child - and as a child, she has no other life experience to compare with her own. For me, the strength of the story is in its rawness, the naive acceptance of a crazy, bewildering world where everyday dangers from disease, wild animals, terrorists and hostile officials, all interwoven with an alcoholic mother and an often distant father, are accepted as the norm. Anyone who has visited any of the countries in the region will identify with so much that is written here, even today. I loved the use of language, the strung-together adjectives and the powerful...

United Kingdom on Jan 28, 2015

Carlo Kergenmayer: Have had similar experience as a (slightly younger) child in the then Belgian Congo. It all is somewhat familiar: the long, long, tedious trips to boarding school with the trunks in the back. My family was far more conventional than the author's and my schooling bit started when the Congo was still Belgian and under entirely peaceful conditions. During the Congo-crisis (a civil-war period after the formal independence of the Congo), things were a bit more complicated. And there I found quite a few things reminiscent of our own situation: to be barricaded at night during the "events" for example. Or the father's resentment of the black boarder-guard whose palm has to be greased.
In the mid-60's, a Mau-Mau like group of local rebels, vaguely communist inspired, the Simbas, attacked isolated farms (all farms were isolated) to chase out of the country all remaining Europeans and we had to take what precautions we could. We had far less weaponry around the house than the family in the book and only my father handled his hunting rifle. We also had a small hand gun, meant mainly to have a go at the snakes (although our fore-man was far better at it with his "coupe-coupe", his...

United Kingdom on Nov 14, 2014

Dawn: Some background first: I'm studying memoir as a genre and therefore have been reading them one after another for the last couple of years. I've always been drawn to the genre, so I am perhaps biased, but I will say that there are a lot of examples out there that do not measure up. They are entertaining to a degree the way that it's interesting to hear about other people's lives and adventures, but if the storyteller is only average, then there is something lost in the conveyance of their experience.

Ms. Fuller conveys beautifully and, I believe, accurately what it is like to grow up in 1970s and 80s Africa, the child of white colonialists. The heat, the bugs, the filth and the beauty are all intertwined here to make life in Africa a palpable experience for the reader. In places the prose is so beautiful that I had to stop and reread whole paragraphs to soak in the author's love of the African countryside. The characters are eccentric, bold and audacious. I finished this book in three afternoons - a rarity for me. The last time I committed myself to finishing a book that quickly was when I picked up Krakauer's Into Thin Air.

Ms. Fuller says that this was meant to be...

United States on Aug 21, 2011

Mrs. S. M. Elkington: The opening paragraph of this book, `Mum says, `Don't come creeping into our room at night'.' They sleep with loaded guns beside them on the bedside rugs. She says, `Don't startle us when we are sleeping'. `Why not?'. `We might shoot you'. `Oh'. `By mistake'. `Okay'..... was not for me the essence of Fuller's account of her childhood. The family lived with the unpredictable and volatile situation in Rhodesia, north and south, - they didn't live through a war but with it. But this is not a grim account of a dangerous survival, it is related as she perceived and reacted as a child accepting the situation and learning as she grew up (not how to cross the road safely) but how to strip down, load and fire a gun. And, she's growing up with a lot of freedom, on the vast farms her father manages, and within the family where she is expected to think and make decisions. Fuller loves Africa and she describes the people and the scenery with wonderful colourful and enticing language conjuring up images of light, space, heat and colour on a vast scale.
I was always conscious that it was an adult unfolding the memories but felt the chills was telling the story. Perhaps Fuller achieved this by...

United Kingdom on Jul 15, 2009