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Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight

by Alexandra Fuller
Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews
  • Reading Group Guide
  • Award Excerpt
  • Read an Excerpt

ISBN13: 9780375758997
ISBN10: 0375758992
Condition: Standard


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Awards

Book Sense Best Nonfiction Book of 2002
A New York Times Notable Book of 2002

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

In Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with visceral authenticity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller?s endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller's debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.

From 1972 to 1990, Alexandra Fuller — known to friends and family as Bobo — grew up on several farms in southern and central Africa. Her father joined up on the side of the white government in the Rhodesian civil war, and was often away fighting against the powerful black guerilla factions. Her mother, in turn, flung herself at their African life and its rugged farm work with the same passion and maniacal energy she brought to everything else. Though she loved her children, she was no hand-holder and had little tolerance for neediness. She nurtured her daughters in other ways: She taught them, by example, to be resilient and self-sufficient, to have strong wills and strong opinions, and to embrace life wholeheartedly, despite and because of difficult circumstances. And she instilled in Bobo, particularly, a love of reading and of storytelling that proved to be her salvation.

A worthy heir to Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, Alexandra Fuller writes poignantly about a girl becoming a woman and a writer against a backdrop of unrest, not just in her country but in her home. But Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is more than a survivor's story. It is the story of one woman's unbreakable bond with a continent and the people who inhabit it, a portrait lovingly realized and deeply felt.

Review

"Fuller is a gifted writer, capable of bringing a sense of immediacy to her writing and crafting descriptions so vibrant the reader cannot only picture the stifling hot African afternoon but almost feel it as well." Booklist

Review

"A classic is born in this tender, intensely moving and even delightful journey through a white African girl's childhood....Fuller's book has the promise of being widely read and remaining of interest for years to come." Publishers Weekly

Review

"This was no ordinary childhood, and it makes a riveting story thanks to an extraordinary telling." School Library Journal

Review

"Nobody has ever written a book about growing up white in rural Africa the way Alexandra Fuller has. Her voice is mordant, her ear uncanny. Her unsentimentality is a pleasant shock. Her sense of humor is extremely sly. Without a trace of pretension, she quietly performs what is really a major literary feat — nailing both the poetry and the myopia of a child’s experience in a brawling, bad-luck family on the losing side of an anti-colonial war." William Finnegan, author of Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid and Cold New World: Growing Up in Harder Country

Review

"[A] gripping memoir...made up, in equal parts, of stark, matter-of-fact reminiscences about her childhood and fierce, Dinesenesque paeans to the land of Africa." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Review

"As casually unadorned as rawhide, and just about as tough....The extremely personal and unguarded understatement of this memoir is far more powerful than any sociopolitical analysis or apologist interpretation could hope to be." The Boston Globe

Synopsis

Fuller, known to friends and family as Bobo, grew up on several farms in southern and central Africa. But Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is more than a survivor's story: It is the story of one woman's unbreakable bond with a continent and the people who inhabit it, a portrait lovingly realized and deeply felt. A Book Sense Selection. Photos.

Synopsis

In Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with candor and sensitivity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller's endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller's debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.

About the Author

Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972 she moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After that country's civil war in 1981, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia. Fuller received a B.A. from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. In 1994, she moved to Wyoming, where she still lives. She has two children.

Reading Group Guide

1. Fuller compares the smell of Africa to "black tea, cut tobacco, fresh fire, old sweat, young grass." She describes "an explosion of day birds . . . a crashing of wings" and "the sound of heat. The grasshoppers and crickets sing and whine. Drying grass crackles. Dogs pant." How effective is the author in drawing the reader into her world with the senses of sound, and smell, and taste? Can you find other examples of her ability to evoke a physical and emotional landscape that pulses with life? What else makes her writing style unique?

2. Given their dangerous surroundings in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia and a long streak of what young Bobo describes as "bad, bad luck," why does the Fuller family remain in Africa?

3. Drawing on specific examples, such as Nicola Fuller's desire to "live in a country where white men still ruled" and the Fuller family's dramatic interactions with African squatters, soldiers, classmates, neighbors, and servants, how would you describe the racial tensions and cultural differences portrayed in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, particularly between black Africans and white Africans?

4. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is rich with humorous scenes and dialogue, such as the visit by two missionaries who are chased away by the family's overfriendly dogs, a bevy of ferocious fleas, and the worst tea they have ever tasted. What other examples of comedy can you recall, and what purpose do you think they serve in this serious memoir?

5. Fuller describes the family's move to Burma Valley as landing them "right [in] the middle, the very birthplace and epicenter, of the civil war in Rhodesia." Do her youthful impressions give a realistic portrait of the violent conflict?

6. The New York Times Book Review described Nicola as "one of the most memorable characters of African memoir." What makes the author's portrait of her mother so vivid? How would you describe Bobo's father?

7. Define the complex relationship between Bobo and Vanessa. How do the two sisters differ in the ways that they relate to their parents?

8. Animals are ever present in the book. How do the Fullers view their domesticated animals, as compared to the wild creatures that populate their world?

9. Of five children born to Nicola Fuller, only two survive. "All people know that in one way or the other the dead must be laid to rest properly," Alexandra Fuller writes. Discuss how her family deals with the devastating loss of Adrian, Olivia, and Richard. Are they successful in laying their ghosts to rest?

10. According to Bobo, "Some Africans believe that if your baby dies, you must bury it far away from your house, with proper magic and incantations and gifts for the gods, so that the baby does not come back." Later, at Devuli Ranch, soon after the narrator and her sister have horrified Thompson, the cook, by disturbing an old gravesite, Bobo's father announces that he is going fishing: "If the fishing is good, we'll stay here and make a go of it. If the fishing is bad, we'll leave." What role does superstition play in this book? Look for examples in the behavior and beliefs of both black and white Africans.

11. Consider Fuller's interactions with black Africans, including her nanny in Rhodesia and the children she plays "boss and boys" with, as well as with Cephas the tracker and, later, the first black African to invite her into his home. Over the course of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, how does the narrator change and grow?

12. By the end of the narrative, how do you think the author feels about Africa? Has the book changed your own perceptions about this part of the world?


4.6 9

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 4.6 (9 comments)

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S Holladay , November 14, 2014 (view all comments by S Holladay)
I'm a sucker for children's voice memoirs such as bone black by bell hooks and This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff. Alexandra Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood is right up there too. She pitch perfectly describes a childhood living with flamboyant parents, and goes into even more detail about her alcoholic mother in her next memoir, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. Fuller also describes the different countries in Africa she lived in simultaneously from the disadvantaged position of a child and privileged position as a white British person. This would make a great gift to a mom or a sister.

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Zoe C , October 11, 2014 (view all comments by Zoe C)
My school had the privilege of having Alexandra Fuller come and talk to us about living in Africa. I was slightly confused about why she was there, but as she talked to one of my classes about living in Africa during a time of war, I automatically wanted to read her book. Now, I was able to read it and I can say I never wanted to put down the book. Being in revolutionary Africa, I would think that living in Africa would be terrifying with being cautious of land mines and terrorist. Fuller recalls her childhood life in Africa. Some parts of her life were fun and exciting, but others were terrifying and scarring. She talks about the dangers of living in a rural African farm house such as nightly raids and land mines. To a five year old, this would be too terrifying. Living a very sheltered life, I would not be able to deal with what Alexandra Fuller did. After reading this book, it opened my eyes on events that I never even knew about. Overall, this is something you want to read! The detail of this book makes you feel like you are right there with her!

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adrian_p43 , November 03, 2012 (view all comments by adrian_p43)
Good book

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gcinthegorge , November 01, 2012 (view all comments by gcinthegorge)
This is the amazing, startling, and at times horrifying story of the author's childhood and young adulthood in Africa. Her family was not affluent and lived with uncomfortable, and often unbearable, situations. The political violence, harsh environment, and tragic losses influenced this loving family for good as well as for bad. Despite the hardships, there are beautiful descriptions of this country that the family loved and could not leave. The author writes her story with humor as well as vividly describing the many interesting, sad, terrifying, and endearing experiences which the family lived through together. I didn't want the book to end. I felt as though I was, in some way, distantly related to this eccentric, dysfunctional, but fascinating family.

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Karen Munro , February 22, 2012 (view all comments by Karen Munro)
Wow. This was a terrific book. Beautifully written and wonderfully honest about growing up as a (more or less) colonial white in several African countries during revolutionary times. Most of the book is about Fuller's early childhood. She reconstructs times and places in incredible, absorbing detail--the smells, tastes, and feelings as well as the events. And she has a story to tell. The places where she grew up (poor, remote African farms) were hard-scrabble and dangerous, but they were also humdrum. Driving in the family's mine-proofed Range Rover, with her mother holding an Uzi out the window, is ordinary stuff. The Fuller children squabble in the back seat like any American kids on an obligatory family road trip, and their father, like every father, carps when they need bathroom breaks. Fuller's smart enough to know that this stuff, well-written, is just as fascinating to read as any of her family's more dramatic exploits. (There are plenty of dramatic exploits.) Race and politics in Africa are obviously complicated, and Fuller doesn't try to solve any problems with this book. She focuses instead on her own family, their struggles and flaws and agonies and joys. By the end of the book I felt like I knew them personally, and liked them despite some of their (in retrospect) questionable decisions and values. I read this ravenously and didn't want it to end. I almost read the Reading Group Guide in the back, just to make the book last a little longer. That's high praise.

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Susan Silva , September 01, 2011
My Brother Gary is a Jesuit priest, assigned to Kenya out of the Oregon Province Offices in Portland. I ran across this book and found that it filled in the blanks about Kenya, and made me feel as if I could share some of Gary's experiences. It is at times a heartbreaking read, and there were pages where I wondered what the heck those parents were thinking. But at the end, I was gratified to have shared her experiences. I'm looking forward to reading her new book.

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andsuzanne , January 31, 2010 (view all comments by andsuzanne)
Absolutely one of my favorite books of the last decade! I was drawn in by the author's evocative voice as she described the hard-scrabble existence, adventures, and tragedy of growing up in war-torn and poverty stricken countries in Africa.

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PDXgal , January 04, 2010
There are very few books that I read that I want to re-read immediately, if at all. I have read this book three times and had my book group read it. Alexandra Fuller does such an amazing job of speaking in her childhood voice throughout this memoir. Her childhood was not easy and had a number of unusual and uncomfortable aspects to it, yet as a child you don't have the perspective to know how strange your life is. She writes about her life from the perspective of that child who, as the reader, you watch start to realize that her parents have issues and that maybe their approach to life is not completely normal. The memoir is also a truly poignant description of race relations in Africa and the politics in the region. The book does not try to gloss over family or racial issues or politics but because Alexandra is able to so wonderfully tell her story from a child's perspective, many of the painful moments have a simple humor to them.

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motheroftwo , September 19, 2008
I am 45 years old but only began reading books for enjoyment this past year. This was one of the first books I selected and couldn't put it down. It was so well written- I felt like I was in Africa experiencing her life story as if it were mine.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780375758997
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
03/11/2003
Publisher:
Random House Inc
Language:
English
Edition:
Reprint
Pages:
315
Height:
8.00
Width:
5.00
Thickness:
.75
LCCN:
BL2003006367
Grade Range:
General/trade
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2001
Series Volume:
v. 12
UPC Code:
2800375758999
Author:
Alexandra Fuller
Subject:
Biography-Historical
Subject:
Zimbabwe - History - Chimurenga War, 1966-
Subject:
Zimbabwe
Subject:
Fuller, Alexandra - Childhood and youth
Subject:
Biography-Childhood Memoir
Subject:
Biography - General
Subject:
History
Subject:
Girls

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List Price:$18.00
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