Synopses & Reviews
In this poignant, lyric memoir, a sisters tragic death prompts a womans unbidden journey into her turbulent African past
A comfortable suburban housewife with three children living in Connecticut, Wendy Kann thought she had put her volatile childhood in colonial Rhodesianow Zimbabwebehind her. Then one Sunday morning came a terrible phone call: her youngest sister, Lauren, had been killed on a lonely road in Zambia. Suddenly unable to ignore her longing for her homeland, she decides she must confront the ghosts of her past.
Wendy Kanns is a personal journey, set against a backdrop as exotic as it is desolate. From a privileged colonial childhood of mansions and servants, her story moves to a young adulthood marked by her fathers death, her mothers insanity, and the viciousness of a bloody civil war. Through unlikely love she finds herself in the incongruous sophistication of Manhattan; three children bring the security of suburban America, until the heartbreaking vulnerability of the small child her sister left behind in Africa compels her to return to a continent she hardly recognizes.
With honesty and compassion, Kann pieces together her sisters life, explores the heartbreak of loss and belonging, and finally discovers the true meaning of home.
Wendy Kann lives in Connecticut with her husband and children. This is her first book. A comfortable suburban housewife with three children living in Connecticut, Wendy Kann thought she had put her volatile childhood in colonial Rhodesianow Zimbabwebehind her. Then one Sunday morning came a terrible phone call: her youngest sister, Lauren, had been killed on a lonely road in Zambia. Suddenly unable to ignore her longing for her homeland, she decides she must confront the ghosts of her past. Wendy Kann's is a personal journey, set against a backdrop as exotic as it is desolate. From a privileged colonial childhood of mansions and servants, her story moves to a young adulthood marked by her father's death, her mother's insanity, and the viciousness of a bloody civil war. Through unlikely love she finds herself in the incongruous sophistication of Manhattan; three children bring the security of suburban America, until the heartbreaking vulnerability of the small child her sister left behind in Africa compels her to return to a continent she hardly recognizes. Kann pieces together her sister's life, explores the heartbreak of loss and belonging, and finally discovers the true meaning of home. "When Rhodesia declared independence from Britain in 1965, five-year-old Kann, the daughter of white Africans, would entertain her father's tennis party guests by singing, "Rhodesia has sanctions, and I can't have Marmite on my toast!" In her 20s, Kann left what had become Zimbabwe for the U.S. Drawn back to Africa by the sudden death of one of her sisters (in a 1999 car crash in Zambia), Kann found herself reexamining her earlier life. Her alcoholic mother-"There should be lots of words to describe drunk mothers, like the Inuit have words for snow"-and her morose father had divorced early; the stepmother who raised the girls after their father's suicide was barely able to manage. The country itself had always been in a state of war; as Kann realized when she first met her American husband, "I had never dated a man who hadn't killed someone, or at least been prepared to kill someone." Until recently, writers like Joseph Conrad and Paul Theroux have defined the white colonial experience in literature. Now . . . we're hearing from a different constituency: the daughters."Publishers Weekly "In this lush and lyrical memoir, Kann recaptures her sometimes idyllic, mostly difficult childhood in colonial African Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) of the 1960s and 1970s. Kann left Africa as a young woman, but after her sister's sudden and tragic death in an automobile accident there in 1999, she returned to their childhood home. Struggling to deal with the loss, she uses the memoir form to reexamine her own life, which has included residence on three continents and been marked alternatively by privilege and hardship . . . Kann's debut is brave, brutally honest, and highly readable. Her prose is poignant and elegant; it especially comes alive when she is describing the land and people of Africa. Through her eyes, we also see America from another perspective and are reminded not only of the differences but also of the commonalities between us. Managing to make the memories of her family and past accessible to the reader, Kann has penned a beautiful and engaging memoir suitable for public and academic libraries."Mary Grace Flaherty, Sidney Memorial Public Library, New York, Library Journal
"This is more than a touching story of personal tragedy. Wendy Kann paints an unapologetic and thoughtful view of a different kind of minority. Her candid treatment of race is refreshingly free of political correctness, her tales of bridging cultures are insightful and thought-provoking, and her family's searing history is penned with honesty. Best of all, her lovely words reflect an introspection and grace that are sometimes borne out of so much hardship."Sarah Erdman, author of Nine Hills To Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village "Wendy Kann's booklike Jeannette Walls's the Glass Castlekept me up all night. It's one of the most beautifully-written, harrowing, compassionate non-fiction books I've read in years. Written with fierce love and a kind of sun-forged courage, it's heartbreaking, almost unbearably real, and incredibly hopeful."Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight and Scribbling The Cat "I was very affected by this accomplished memoir. Wendy Kann, with often heart-breaking and evocative detail, has brought back a small gem from her colonial experience of Africa."Carolyn Slaughter, author of A Black Englishman and Before The Knife: Memories of an African Childhood "Wendy Kann's courageous memoir is marked by lossof a mother and a father, of a country, of a sister. Her work is remarkably free of sentimentality. Instead she writes eloquently about her and her sisters increasingly desperate struggle for love and sense of belonging in a family disintegrating at the same time that a brutal civil war breaks out in Rhodesia. She vividly captures the fear and denial and disbelief of her fellow white countrymen in the years preceding independence. Though painful at times, her journey back to Zimbabwe and her reclaiming of her childhood years in Africa is a gripping read."Lisa Fugard, author of Skinner's Drift: A Novel "Kann writes brilliantly about sisters: their frictions, their intimacies, and, above all, their binding loyalty, even when time has moved them continents apart. Her memoir takes us on an emotional helter-skelter, from the entitlement and raw racism of her African childhood, through troughs of poverty and abandonment, to an ascendant understanding of what means to live and love. Reads like a sequel to Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and Doris Lessing's memoirs."Rob Nixon, Rachel Carson Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin and author of Dreambirds
Review
"This is more than a touching story of personal tragedy. Wendy Kann paints an unapologetic and thoughtful view of a different kind of minority. She is first a settler: a white Zimbabwean, brought up in a privileged but dysfunctional cocoon of expats, alcoholics, and hardbitten farmers. She is later an improbable African immigrant: a Western-looking woman bewildered and alone on the streets of New York. Her candid treatment of race is refreshingly free of political correctness, her tales of bridging cultures are insightful and thought-provoking, and her family's searing history is penned with honesty. Best of all, her lovely words reflect an introspection and grace that are sometimes borne out of so much hardship."
--Sarah Erdman, author of Nine Hills To Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village
"Wendy Kann's book - like Jeannette Walls's the Glass Castle - kept me up all night. It's one of the most beautifully-written, harrowing, compassionate non-fiction books I've read in years. Written with fierce love and a kind of sun-forged courage, it's heartbreaking, almost unbearably real, and incredibly hopeful."
--Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight and Scribbling The Cat
"I was very affected by this accomplished memoir. Wendy Kann, with often heart-breaking and evocative detail, has brought back a small gem from her colonial experience of Africa." --Carolyn Slaughter, author of A Black Englishman and Before The Knife: Memories of an African Childhood
"Wendy Kann's courageous memoir is marked by loss - of a mother and a father, of a country, of a sister. Her work is remarkably free of sentimentality. Instead she writes eloquently about her and her sisters increasingly desperate struggle for love and sense of belonging in a family disintegrating at the same time that a brutal civil war breaks out in Rhodesia. She vividly captures the fear and denial and disbelief of her fellow white countrymen in the years preceding independence. Though painful at times, her journey back to Zimbabwe and her reclaiming of her childhood years in Africa is a gripping read." --Lisa Fugard, author of Skinner's Drift: A Novel
"Kann writes brilliantly about sisters: their frictions, their intimacies, and, above all, their binding loyalty, even when time has moved them continents apart. Her memoir takes us on an emotional helter-skelter, from the entitlement and raw racism of her African childhood, through troughs of poverty and abandonment, to an ascendant understanding of what means to live and love. Reads like a sequel to Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and Doris Lessing's memoirs." --Rob Nixon, Rachel Carson Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin and author of Dreambirds
Review
"This is more than a touching story of personal tragedy. Wendy Kann paints an unapologetic and thoughtful view of a different kind of minority. She is first a settler: a white Zimbabwean, brought up in a privileged but dysfunctional cocoon of expats, alcoholics, and hardbitten farmers. She is later an improbable African immigrant: a Western-looking woman bewildered and alone on the streets of New York. Her candid treatment of race is refreshingly free of political correctness, her tales of bridging cultures are insightful and thought-provoking, and her family's searing history is penned with honesty. Best of all, her lovely words reflect an introspection and grace that are sometimes borne out of so much hardship."
--Sarah Erdman, author of Nine Hills To Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village
"Wendy Kann's book - like Jeannette Walls's the Glass Castle - kept me up all night. It's one of the most beautifully-written, harrowing, compassionate non-fiction books I've read in years. Written with fierce love and a kind of sun-forged courage, it's heartbreaking, almost unbearably real, and incredibly hopeful."
--Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight and Scribbling The Cat
"I was very affected by this accomplished memoir. Wendy Kann, with often heart-breaking and evocative detail, has brought back a small gem from her colonial experience of Africa." --Carolyn Slaughter, author of A Black Englishman and Before The Knife: Memories of an African Childhood
"Wendy Kann's courageous memoir is marked by loss - of a mother and a father, of a country, of a sister. Her work is remarkably free of sentimentality. Instead she writes eloquently about her and her sisters increasingly desperate struggle for love and sense of belonging in a family disintegrating at the same time that a brutal civil war breaks out in Rhodesia. She vividly captures the fear and denial and disbelief of her fellow white countrymen in the years preceding independence. Though painful at times, her journey back to Zimbabwe and her reclaiming of her childhood years in Africa is a gripping read." --Lisa Fugard, author of Skinner's Drift: A Novel
"Kann writes brilliantly about sisters: their frictions, their intimacies, and, above all, their binding loyalty, even when time has moved them continents apart. Her memoir takes us on an emotional helter-skelter, from the entitlement and raw racism of her African childhood, through troughs of poverty and abandonment, to an ascendant understanding of what means to live and love. Reads like a sequel to Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and Doris Lessing's memoirs." --Rob Nixon, Rachel Carson Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin and author of Dreambirds
Synopsis
In this poignant, lyric memoir, a sister's tragic death prompts a woman's unbidden journey into her turbulent African past
A comfortable suburban housewife with three children living in Connecticut, Wendy Kann thought she had put her volatile childhood in colonial Rhodesia--now Zimbabwe--behind her. Then one Sunday morning came a terrible phone call: her youngest sister, Lauren, had been killed on a lonely road in Zambia. Suddenly unable to ignore her longing for her homeland, she decides she must confront the ghosts of her past.
Wendy Kann's is a personal journey, set against a backdrop as exotic as it is desolate. From a privileged colonial childhood of mansions and servants, her story moves to a young adulthood marked by her father's death, her mother's insanity, and the viciousness of a bloody civil war. Through unlikely love she finds herself in the incongruous sophistication of Manhattan; three children bring the security of suburban America, until the heartbreaking vulnerability of the small child her sister left behind in Africa compels her to return to a continent she hardly recognizes.
With honesty and compassion, Kann pieces together her sister's life, explores the heartbreak of loss and belonging, and finally discovers the true meaning of home.
Synopsis
In this poignant, lyric memoir, a sister's tragic death prompts a woman's unbidden journey into her turbulent African past.
Synopsis
In this poignant, lyric memoir, a sister's tragic death prompts a woman's unbidden journey into her turbulent African past
A comfortable suburban housewife with three children living in Connecticut, Wendy Kann thought she had put her volatile childhood in colonial Rhodesia--now Zimbabwe--behind her. Then one Sunday morning came a terrible phone call: her youngest sister, Lauren, had been killed on a lonely road in Zambia. Suddenly unable to ignore her longing for her homeland, she decides she must confront the ghosts of her past.
Wendy Kann's is a personal journey, set against a backdrop as exotic as it is desolate. From a privileged colonial childhood of mansions and servants, her story moves to a young adulthood marked by her father's death, her mother's insanity, and the viciousness of a bloody civil war. Through unlikely love she finds herself in the incongruous sophistication of Manhattan; three children bring the security of suburban America, until the heartbreaking vulnerability of the small child her sister left behind in Africa compels her to return to a continent she hardly recognizes.
With honesty and compassion, Kann pieces together her sister's life, explores the heartbreak of loss and belonging, and finally discovers the true meaning of home.
Synopsis
One Sunday morning in her suburban home in Connecticut, Wendy Kann received a phone call: her youngest sister, Lauren, had been killed on a lonely road in southern Africa. With that news, Kann is summoned back to the territory of her youth in what is now Zimbabwe. The girls' privileged colonial childhood, a rural life of mansions and servants, is devastated by their father's premature death, their mother's insanity, and the onset of civil war. Kann soon leaves Africa, marries an American, and has finally settled into the dry sophistication of life in the States when her sister's death calls her back.
With honesty and compassion, Kann pieces together her sister's life, explores the heartbreak of loss and the struggle to belong, and finally discovers a new, more complicated meaning of home.
About the Author
Wendy Kann lives in Connecticut with her husband and children. This is her first book.
Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the title of the book and how it speaks to the authors sense of identity. How does that sense of identity change over the course of the book?
2. "I was trying to figure out what ‘American was so I could be just that," the author says. Who or what prevents her from feeling as though she belongs in America? Does she feel as though she belongs in Rhodesia? In Zimbabwe? If not, what prevents her from belonging there? Is the issue of belonging always about a geographical place?
3. The author is frustrated by her relationship with her mother and then later by that with her stepmother. She tries to be a substitute mother for Lauren, and later Luke. What are the roles and responsibilities of a mother? Are the expectations we have of our own mothers too high? What is the impact on a child in being forced to mother a parent or sibling? Can a stepmother ever really fulfill a childs emotional needs? Discuss the significance of the term "motherland."
4. What accounts for the different choices the sisters make? Why, specifically, do you think that Lauren decided to marry Richard and move to Zambia?
5. The author seems to fall in love with Mickey, her future husband, on the basis of him asking her about South African politics. What does his question represent? What does the author gain by leaving Africa and marrying him? What does she lose? Why does she spend most of her time in America longing to return to the place where she experienced so much heartache?
6. What do we learn about cultural and social differences between Africa and America? What, specifically, do we learn about the role of women? Is the American feminist ethos always liberating?
7. The author writes: "America was a place where life played out gently, only in the middle octaves." Is her tone one of disappointment? What does it mean to survive a traumatic childhood? Why do some people survive it better than others?
8. Surprised to be given tea in a paper cup and to be served lobster on a paper tablecloth, the author ironically finds America to be a shabby substitute for Africa. Why do you think she comes to this conclusion?
9. How effectively does the author evoke Africa? Discuss the differences between her urban colonial childhood and the Africa of Lukes childhood. Do we, as readers, have particular expectations from a book set in Africa? If so, why, and what does that say about our preconceived notions about the continent?
10. In general, do male characters play a significant role in Casting with a Fragile Thread? To what degree do men in Africa appear capable of sensitive or appropriate emotion? How is the authors American husband similar to or different from African men? Discuss the relationship between culturally imposed gender roles and individual identity. Does the authors experience of men contribute to her concerns about Lukes upbringing?
11. As a child, the author literally does not see black people. By the end of the book, her tone is one of revelation rather than horror or guilt. As far as race is concerned, does she develop enough? As a white African, how much responsibility should she bear for racial injustice in her countrys history? Does her obliviousness to the implications of race suggest the possibility of equivalent blind spots in American culture today?
12. By the end of the book, does the author seem happy? Discuss memoir as a genre and how an ongoing life fits the conventional narrative structure of beginning, middle and end.