Linda Ballou Talking to You

Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I bought this book in anticipation of my up coming trip to Zambia. I read Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, the second in Fuller’s memoir trilogy and was excited to carry on with Alexandra’s life in Africa. She painted an exotic, chaotic portrait of her parents living in Kenya and Zambia in the second book, and I couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter. In this book she acknowledges that her glamorous, amorous parents enjoyed the blissful comradery that comes when both parties are alcoholics. Their boozy parties with dancing on the table seemed less appealing to Fuller after living 16 years in Wyoming with the modern cowboy she married. Her husband was a rafting guide on the Zambezi River when they met. Pretty hunkie if you ask me, but that is not the point. The point seems to be that she and he were not compatible even though they loved each deeply. Fuller is a brilliant writer and an honest to the bone memoirist. There is nothing saccharine or banal in her reflections on her life in Kenya and Zambia while they were going through wars declaring their independence from colonial British dominance. However, I noticed the cover image on this book is of her looking away as though she still has trouble facing the truths in her life. Her mother often told her not to write any of her “awful” books about them. I was sad in the end, not because of her story, but because of Zambia’s story. In the 1990’s it was home to vast herds of elephants, giraffes, antelopes, and rhinos and cheetah. I do hope I will find the remnant of what remains of the wild animals, less than tragic and on the rebound. I hope African’s can contain the poaching that persists in the wildlife preserves in Zambia. As for Ms. Fuller, I am sure her brilliance will shine in many novels to come now that she is free of living with the conflict that comes with marriage to the wrong person.Lost Angel Walkabout: One Traveler's Tales


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