Leaving before the rains come / Alexandra Fuller.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Penguin Press, 2015Description: 258 pages ; 25 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 1594205868
- 9781594205866
- 306.89/3 B 23
- HQ834 .F85 2015
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Bedford Public Library Biography | Biography | BIO FULLER FUL | Available | 32500001671586 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
The New York Times Bestseller from the author of Travel Light, Move Fast
"One of the gutsiest memoirs I've ever read. And the writing--oh my god the writing ."-- Entertainment Weekly
A child of the Rhodesian wars and daughter of two deeply complicated parents, Alexandra Fuller is no stranger to pain. But the disintegration of Fuller's own marriage leaves her shattered. Looking to pick up the pieces of her life, she finally confronts the tough questions about her past, about the American man she married, and about the family she left behind in Africa. A breathtaking achievement, Leaving Before the Rains Come is a memoir of such grace and intelligence, filled with such wit and courage, that it could only have been written by Alexandra Fuller.
Leaving Before the Rains Come begins with the dreadful first years of the American financial crisis when Fuller's delicate balance--between American pragmatism and African fatalism, the linchpin of her unorthodox marriage--irrevocably fails. Recalling her unusual courtship in Zambia--elephant attacks on the first date, sick with malaria on the wedding day--Fuller struggles to understand her younger self as she overcomes her current misfortunes. Fuller soon realizes what is missing from her life is something that was always there: the brash and uncompromising ways of her father, the man who warned his daughter that "the problem with most people is that they want to be alive for as long as possible without having any idea whatsoever how to live." Fuller's father--"Tim Fuller of No Fixed Abode" as he first introduced himself to his future wife--was a man who regretted nothing and wanted less, even after fighting harder and losing more than most men could bear.
Leaving Before the Rains Come showcases Fuller at the peak of her abilities, threading panoramic vistas with her deepest revelations as a fully grown woman and mother. Fuller reveals how, after spending a lifetime fearfully waiting for someone to show up and save her, she discovered that, in the end, we all simply have to save ourselves.
An unforgettable book, Leaving Before the Rains Come is a story of sorrow grounded in the tragic grandeur and rueful joy only to be found in Fuller's Africa.
And away we fly -- Madness in prescribed doses -- Decisions by Dionysus -- Mr. adventure's immunity -- Marital advice from a mildly stoned cook -- Marriage vows in the time of malaria -- Continental drift -- Marriage advice from the end of the world -- Signal flags -- The midday sun -- Last call on the African queen -- This grand inheritance -- Marriage in the time of cholera -- Babies in the time of yellow fever -- Mad beans, time, and ghosts -- The river runner and the rat race -- Fortune teller fish -- Falling -- Broken -- Cry for a whole people.
The author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight traces her post-divorce confrontation of an upbringing in Africa that was overshadowed by the Rhodesian wars, her complicated parents and her courtship with her ex-husband. --Publisher's description.
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Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Fuller (Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight) follows her two previous memoirs about her childhood during the Rhodesian wars with this third memoir about the dissolution of her marriage and her return to Africa. The doomed union is traced from the couple's Zambian courtship to its end in the wake of Fuller's husband's near-fatal horse-riding accident in the United States. Fuller's family again plays a large role as the author reflects on the circumstances that shaped both her personality and her expectations for her life. Fans of Fuller's previous work will enjoy the opportunity to revisit her eccentric family and learn more about the unconventional lifestyle of Zambian farmers. Fuller's prose throughout is exquisite, poetic, and rich with her unique voice. The audiobook features narration by the author, heightening the intimacy of the story. VERDICT This title will appeal to Fuller's fans as well as those looking for a read-alike to Elizabeth Gilbert's memoirs. Recommended for all collections.-Julie -Judkins, Univ. of North Texas, Denton © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
Thinking back to 1994, when the African-raised Fuller (Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness), her American husband, and their infant daughter left their cottage in Zimbabwe for a life in the mountains of Idaho and Wyoming, she writes, "Our marriage wasn't going to be about nearly dying, and violent beauty, and unpredictability... sensible decisions, college funds, mortgages, and car payments." In her newest memoir, Fuller insightfully explores the contrasts between the different landscapes and their corresponding mind-sets, as well as between the safe investment she intended with her marriage and the messy, isolating reality of where the relationship ended. As always, when Fuller describes the African farms of her childhood, her prose vibrates with life and death and dry British sensibility. Equally sharp are her observations about American life and its all-consuming pursuit of convenience and comfort. However, this book also attempts to tackle territory for more familiar to her Western audience-a sad, drawn-out divorce complicated by three adored children and piles of debt. Understandably, the utter banality of the day-to-day proves more difficult for Fuller to enliven with her signature punch. Nonetheless, the rich narration of Fuller's upbringing, sensibility, and loneliness make clear that she remains one of the most gifted and important memoirists of our time. Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Fuller (Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness, 2011) has elevated the memoir to new levels in her books about her and her family's life in Africa. In her latest, she chronicles a painful time: the collapse of her marriage to the man she wed at age 22. Raised in Zimbabwe and Zambia in the tumultuous 1970s and '80s, Fuller believed she'd found the man who could take on not only her but her family as well when she met Charlie Ross, a sturdy, bearded Wyoming native turned river guide. The pair wed after a year together and started their lives in Africa before moving to Wyoming, where Charlie got a job in real estate and Fuller penned numerous novels and worked odd jobs while raising the couple's three children. But as the years went on, the gap between them widened, and Fuller wrestled with the magnitude of what it meant to separate, then end their marriage. Powerful, raw, and painful, Fuller's writing is so immediate, so vivid that whether she's describing the beauty of Zambia or the harrowing hours following a devastating accident, she leaves the reader breathless. Another not-to-be-missed entry from the gifted Fuller.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2014 BooklistKirkus Book Review
Fuller (Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, 2012, etc.) resumes her memories of growing up in Africa in this wry, forthright and captivating memoir.This time, the focus is on the slow unraveling of her marriage to a man she thought would save her from her family's madness and chaos. Except for her father's insistence that his children bathe and dress formally for dinnera gesture toward discipline that emerged nowhere elseFuller's childhood was as wild as the Zambian landscape. Her father made "absolute, capricious, and patriarchal" rules. Boredom, he announced, was "the worst possible sin." Despite, or perhaps because of, his idiosyncrasies and contradictions, the author idolized him. Her mother, with a family history of mental instability, often succumbed to "long, solo voyages into her dark, grief-disturbed interior," fueled by alcohol. Resembling her physically, Fuller feared that along with "all that Scottish passion," she might inherit madness, as well: "how could I have skipped the place where her ingenuity and passion sat too close to insanity on the spiraling legacy of heritage?" Unsurprisingly, she married an adventurous, dependable man who she thought would provide stability and order. Her husband "was the perfect rescuer," she writes, "and I the most relieved and grateful rescue victim." After a few years in Africa, they moved to America, where living was easier (dependable electricity and running water, for example), unthreatened by political uprisings or rampaging elephants. They had children, but financial pressures, especially after 2008, and her own loneliness gradually took a toll: "Ours had contracted into a grocery-list relationshipfinances, children, housekeeping." To reclaim her life, she insisted on divorce. Although her batty and unhinged relatives emerge more vividly than her taciturn husband, Fuller's talent as a storyteller makes this memoir sing. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972, she moved with her family to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). At the end of that country's civil war, the family moved to Malawi and later Zambia. Fuller received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada after which she returned to Zambia where she worked with a safari company. In 1993, Fuller and her husband settled near Livingstone on the banks of the Zambezi River. In 1994, she left Africa and moved to Wyoming, USA In 2011, her book Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness made Publisher's Weekly Best seller list. Fuller's title, Leaving Before the Rains Come, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2015.(Bowker Author Biography)