Every sentence that Alexandra Fuller writes in this sequel to her memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight displays such candor, sincerity, intimacy and unashamed delight in the eccentricities of her family that she renders all the Fullers irresistible. The reader is captivated by their humor, courage under fire, perseverance and overarching love for the land they've made their own: Africa.
At first glance, one might consider Nicola Christine Victoria Huntingford Fuller and Timothy Donald Fuller indifferent or careless parents and alcoholics, perhaps certifiable. A closer look reveals a great love story, huge amounts of loyalty and forgiveness, a capacity to come back from heartbreak so deep that the mind cannot fathom it and a dogged belief that they have a home in Africa--where they fit better than in England or Scotland, where they were born.
Alexandra is not given much quarter by her mother, who says things like: "You know, you're just like Christopher bloody Robin. That wretched child also grew up and wrote an Awful Book even after all those lovely stories and poems his father wrote for him. He went on and on about what a rotten parent A.A. Milne was and about how A.A. Milne hadn't hugged Christopher bloody Robin enough."
Nicola herself was reared by adventuresome parents: her mother, who had a "charmed and feral childhood," and her father, who "taught himself engineering and was hired to build the branch railway line from Eldoret to Kitale. 'He had a donkey for transport," Mum says, "but the donkey fell in love with a herd of zebra and ran away to be with them. After that Dad had to use a bicycle.' " These are people of bottomless resources in the face of any adversity.
And adversity came in large doses. The family moved around Africa, running from war, running from the loss of three children. The only survivor other than Alexandra is her older sister, Vanessa, whose eccentricity is her insistence that she cannot read. Nicola suffered periodic bouts of absolute madness, but continued to hope that the next move would be the right one. With each move, Bobo, as she is called by her family, gives us a list of what went along: the family menagerie, always considerable; "Mum's collection of books, the two hunting prints, linens, towels, the bronze cast of Wellington and the LeCreuset pots." When asked why they kept going back, Nicola says: "It was Africa, that was the main thing--we wanted to go back to Africa. We longed for the warmth and freedom, the real open spaces, the wild animals, the sky at night."
The perfect equatorial light of Africa is mentioned several times and, at the end, sitting under the Tree of Forgetfulness on their banana and fish farm in Zambia, Fuller helps us see it. Within it, her parents are finally at home. --Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: A captivating sequel to Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, this story of Alexandra Fuller's parents is one of love and loss in equal doses, all backlit by the red African sun.