Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

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who spent a lot of her childhood soused and/or depressed. Hope Mum spoke to her again after this one. the leach field, the green soap which has spilled out from the laundry and landed on the patted-down red earth, the wood smoke from the fires that heat our water, the boiled-meat smell of dog food. This is a joyously telling memoir that evokes Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club as much as it does Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa.” —New York Daily News Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, 2002 Booksense best non-fiction book, 2004 Ulysses Prize for Art of Reportage Find sources: "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( November 2011) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)

After the central tragedy of the book, Fuller’s mother goes from being a “fun drunk to a crazy sad drunk”, and Fuller feels responsible for that too. Her parents’ wildness is now terrifying to their children and the war seems, at times, just an extension of that fear: “then the outside world starts to join in and has a nervous breakdown all its own, so that it starts to get hard for me to know where Mum’s madness ends and the world’s madness begins”. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. A poetic Shona way of saying ‘War of Liberation’– The choice of adjective ‘poetic’ suggests that Bobo sees a beauty in the language of the local people, and thus that she admires them. This ties into the idea of the impartial, innocent nature of children, which allows Bobo to respect the native people’s culture.How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to. I did like the story about the exploding Christmas cake, though. Nothing like a little flambe to brighten your holiday. HA! Mr Fuller is the strong silent type who has probably put up with a lot but the sight of the two of them glasees raised high on their verandha in the late evening tells of a hard unglamourous incident filled life survived with devil me care humour . Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (2002), a memoir by the Zimbabwean writer Alexandra Fuller, tells the story of Fuller’s childhood in Zimbabwe—then Rhodesia—on a series of struggling farms. Fuller places her personal recollections of lost siblings and her mother’s alcoholism in the context of Zimbabwe’s political upheaval and the situation of white colonists in Southern Africa. The title alludes to a joke by the writer and humorist A. P. Herbert: “Don't let's go to the dogs tonight, for mother will be there.” No one starts a war warning that those involved will lose their innocence - that children will definitely die and be forever lost as a result of the conflict; that the war will not end for generations and generations, even after cease-fire have been declared and peace of treaties have been signed." I have read quite a few war-related memoirs lately and it is getting to me. I need some balance now.

I loved this but then I loved Alexandra's previous memoir of life growing up in Africa with her parents " Don't let's go to the dogs tonight ".

Chapter 10 – How does Fuller portray the increasing danger of living in Rhodesia and nearby Mozambique in 1974. I was captivated by the writing: the author writes with candor and wit about her chaotic, often tragic childhood. The writing is poetic, yet understated, letting the beauty and harshness of the landscape and her experiences speak for themselves. This is not a book you read just once, but a tale of terrible beauty to get lost in over and over.” — Newsweek In the morning, when she's just on the pills, she's very sleepy and calm and slow and deliberate, like someone who isn't sure where her body ends and the world starts." My reason for sharing this is simple... I have read Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight not just once, not just twice, but three times! There is no stronger endorsement I personally can give. Alexander Fuller takes risks with her writing and grammar. I found myself marveling at her bravery. It's always risky to deviate from standard writing format. Some people can be put off immediately, but I found it charming.