Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood

Written by Alexandra Fuller

Narrated by Lisette Lecat

Alexandra Fuller tells the idiosyncratic story of her life growing up white in rural Rhodesia as it was becoming Zimbabwe. The daughter of hardworking, yet strikingly unconventional English-bred immigrants, Alexandra arrives in Africa at the tender age of two. She moves through life with a hardy resilience, even as a bloody war approaches. Narrator Lisette Lecat reads this remarkable memoir of a family clinging to a harsh landscape and the dying tenets of colonialism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 6, 2008
• ISBN: 9781440781414

Alexandra Fuller

Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. She moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with her family when she was two. After that country’s war of independence (1980) her family moved first to Malawi and then Zambia. She came to the United States in 1994. Her book Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize in 2002 and a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award. Scribbling the Cat won the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage in 2006.

Reviews for Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

[Balázs Válint · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

absolute dog water I got boxed like a fish by the teacher that made me read this, the most boring book I ever had to listen/read. (recommend to everyone :) )

[sauni · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Her storytelling is as such as it becomes your own history. Vivid color in a monochromatic world

[bookconcierge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

2.5 stars - Okay memoir of growing up in Rhodesia during the time of the war for independence. (Author was born in 1969.) Parents are drunken idiots. Moments of great description. But somewhat pointless, as no one seems to learn from life's lessons.

[Sandy Benemerito Bailey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful memoir by a talented writer who brings to life the sounds, smells, tastes, and heat of Zimbabewe (née Rhodesia) in the 1970s-80s. As I did not have much knowledge of the civil war in Rhodesia or how relationships functioned between the white settlers and Black indigenous people, it was fascinating to experience the culture -- and blatant, if misunderstood, racism -- through the author's eyes as a 7yr old, a teenager, and a young woman. The narrator, "Bobo", recounts a family life beset by tragedy (her young and troubled mother loses 3 of her 5 babies and mentally, falls apart along the way). She also relays the persecution her family felt as they fled their homeland for a disastrous stay in Malawi and other countries before finding their home. The episodes of the rough and wild lives they led were incredible. Example: her mother must feed a rescued, injured owl with insects and rodents; her plea to the local children to produce the "feed" in exchange for money results in dozens of dead vermin delivered daily to their porch. Fuller writes of these episodes with creativity and humor. She also lays bare the racism (which she disavows and self-certifies that she "hates" in interviews in later years) that her family exuded in their small actions, statements and treatment of Black people. Lastly, her writing style showcases a talent and storytelling skills that - while meandering in parts -paint a vibrant picture of her life. This was the first of several memoirs involving her family, especially her fiery mother and beloved father, in later years. Fuller has been accused of exploitation due to her frequent revisiting (and cashing in on) family memories to churn out bestsellers. I give her the benefit of the doubt on this point, as I enjoyed learning about a different time and culture, with its warts and all.
NB - I switched between the written and spoken versions of "Dogs". The audiobook narrator, Lisette Lecat, was SUPERB.

[kslade-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good memoir of a childhood in Africa.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a classic example of the good old-fashioned "I grew up on a farm in Africa" memoir, complete with beautiful African scenery and smells, frightening political upheaval, grinding ecological disaster, family tragedy and comic interludes, and featuring embittered, gun-toting, drunken white people and lovable, impoverished, unreliable, drunken black people. And a lot of very heavy drinking. Except that it's not set in the Olive Schreiner/Karen Blixen era, or even the Doris Lessing era, but much closer to our own experience, in the 1970s and 80s. Fuller describes her childhood on her parents' farm in Zimbabwe during the guerrilla war; after Mugabe comes to power they lose their farm and move first to another less promising farm in Zimbabwe, then to the poverty and political oppression of Hastings Banda's Malawi, and finally to Zambia. Although the Fullers are probably not people you would want to be trapped with in a restaurant, they are fun to read about, and the author's talent for vivid description and the warmth of her obvious love for Africa more than makes up for the occasional bit of overwritten purple prose. She's not Doris Lessing, and there's no deep political analysis going on here, still less any suggestion of how she thinks Africa should be run, but she doesn't hesitate to criticise the attitudes of the colonialist class she was brought up in when they are clearly wrong. But, equally, she wants us to see that farmers like her parents are not just colonial exploiters, but they are also people who have built up a lot of knowledge about how to make African land productive in sustainable ways. It's just a pity that they should invest all that effort in tobacco, a product the world would be a lot better without...

[breic-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This has been on my reading list for a long time. I found it to be disappointing, rather pedestrian. A much better memoir of "an African childhood," that engages with the issues, is "Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa", by Peter Godwin. > "[In] 1965, he made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain. He made it clear that there would never be majority rule in Rhodesia." Even when Mum is so drunk that she is practicing her yoga moves, she can remember the key dates relating to Our Tragedies. "So we moved there in 1966. Our daughter—Vanessa, our eldest—was only one year old. We were prepared"—Mum's voice grows suitably dramatic—"to take our baby into a war to live in a country where white men still ruled."> She taught the horses not to be scared of guns. She burst paper bags at their feet for a whole morning. She popped balloons all afternoon. And the next day she shot guns right by their heads until they only swished their tails and jerked their heads at the sound, as if trying to get rid of a biting fly. So the horses lazily ignore gunshot when we're out riding, but they still bolt if there's a rustle in the bushes, or if a cow surprises them, or if they see a monkey or a snake, or if a troop of baboons startles out of the bush with their warning cry, "Wa-hu!"

[cindywho-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

White Rhodesians were delusional and intrusive in what is now known as Zimbabwe. Bobo is raised by a family plagued by poverty, disease, and death that managed to survive and use what privilege they had to always manage to find a piece of land to work. They find beauty in a difficult land and insanity in tragedy.

[labfs39 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a memoir of the author's childhood in Zimbabwe during and after the Rhodesian Civil War in which Zimbabwe gains independence from the British. Driving to town in a mine-proofed Land Rover with Uzi's across their laps, the family is caught between fighting for the British while at the same time living among the locals. The dichotomy between Bobo's life among the native women who raised her and her father's stints in the local British militia is one of the tensions running through the book. Life in the dusty fringes of south-central Africa is difficult. Moving often, the Fuller's are always making due with the barest necessities and no firm position within society. Bobo's mother is a tough alcoholic with little time or inclination for pampering her daughters. Her father is a farmer who is always looking ahead to the next big opportunity. The author obviously loves Africa, but a rough and chaotic Africa, not a sugar-coated one.I enjoyed the honest portrayal of life from a child's perspective without the form of a typical coming-of-age story. Recommended.

[jgoto_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight is Alexandra Fuller's memoir of her young years as a white expatriate living in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi. The book is not a political statement; rather it is an honest reflection of life with her hard-scrabble, racist white family as they struggled through wars, illness and poverty on the African continent. Fuller's descriptions of the land are vivid and sensuous:"African night comes like that, long rich sunsets and then, abruptly, night. The cooler night air is releasing the scents trapped by a hot day; the sweet warm waft of the potato bush; the sharp citronella smell of khaki weed; raw cow manure;dry-dust cow manure." Her humor is dry and understated:"I have a special Red Cross certificate from school. I can stabilize a broken limb or a broken neck and bandage a sprain. I can dress a bullet wound. I can make hospital corners on a bed.I know how to find a vein and administer a drip, but I am only allowed to do this if All the Grown-ups Are Dead."I enjoyed reading this account of Fuller's childhood, written without apology or any attempt to whitewash it.

[camelama_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating read. I've been interested in the British in Africa after reading Flame Trees of Thika, Beryl Markham's books, etc. This is a more modern era lifetime story, involving multiple civil wars, alcoholics, murders, rapes, drugs, continual bad weather, insects, etc etc.

If you are of delicate constitution, you'll have to skip a lot in this book. Gory descriptions abound.

[gayla.bassham · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I feel like I should say something more analytical, but: loved, loved, loved this book, couldn't put it down, thought it was just fabulous. I resisted it for years for some reason, but I'm so glad I finally read it.

[punxsygal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating story of a childhood in Africa--Rhodesia during its civil war, Malawi and Zambia. The daughter of farmers, Fuller remembers the good and the bad, the bugs and the beauty, the worms and the drinking. I feel that the author and her sister grew up in spite of their parents. A great read, but does not entice me to visit Africa.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In her memoir of growing up in Africa, Fuller paints a vivid and unflinching portrait of her unconventional childhood. Alexandra, who goes by Bobo, lived with her parents and sister in Rhodesia in the midst of Civil War in the 1970s. The daily dangers they face become the norm as they grow up. The style of the book reminded me quite a bit of The Liar’s Club and The Glass Castle. All three are similar tales of a somewhat neglected upbringing. This one is more extreme because it’s in Africa. The threat of terrorists and war increases the danger, but the struggle of a child growing up with alcoholic and selfish parents is a universal one. Loss is a major theme throughout the book. Bobo and her family lose multiple children and at times their grief overwhelms them. Some of the surreal experiences Fuller describes almost seem normal when she writes about them. Certain aspects remind you that they are not anywhere near the western world, like the sanitary conditions, which were appalling. The kids constantly had worms or fleas and were often left to fend for themselves. The circumstances of their life felt so foreign. There was no structure. Their existence depended on the whims of their irresponsible parents. Bobo’s older sister Vanessa was a somewhat stable force in her life. She seemed to understand more about what was happening, but she protected her sister as much as she could. BOTTOM LINE: I love reading memoirs that give me a glimpse into a completely foreign life and this one did just that. I don’t envy Fuller’s childhood, but it was fascinating to read about. “The land itself, of course, was careless of its name. It still is. You can call it what you like, fight all the wars you want in its name. Change its name altogether if you like. The land is still unblinking under the African sky. It will absorb white man's blood and the blood of African men, it will absorb blood from slaughtered cattle and the blood from a woman's birthing with equal thirst. It doesn't care.”

[starbox_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Because we're all Rhodesians and we'll fight through thickanthin...",, November 19, 2014This review is from: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood (Kindle Edition)Wonderful memoir of the author's childhood in Africa, where her parents had settled as farmers. The larger part of the book concerns their time in Rhodesia - war-torn and on the brink of independence, with neighbouring Mozambique also presenting a threat: "Vanessa and I, like all the kids over the age of five in our valley, have to learn how to load an FN rifle magazine...and ultimately shoot-to-kill."The happy side of life - the animals, the freedom - are tempered by the harshness, as death, mental illness and alcohol add to the difficulties of climate and political instability.The author vividly conjures up her childhood, assisted by b/w photos throughout. Wonderful read.

[squeakychu · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Alexandra Fuller, also know as Bobo, is the youngest surviving child of a British expatriate couple who work as farmers in the African countries of Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia. The author paints a very colorful picture of these three countries as she describes the years of her African childhood. She remembers the good times and the bad. Her parents lose three children, her parents are heavy drinkers, and her mom suffers from manic depression. Growing up in a time when blacks and whites don't mix socially due to class difference seems strange now, but Bobo's story reflects a different time and place. Being tormented by her older sister Vanessa doesn't bother Bobo all that much as she is always able to find pleasure in the simple things of African life. Even later, as a married adult living in the USA, she relishes any opportunity for a return visit to her former African home. Although a mildly painful book, the overall spirit of it is one of joy. It's terrifically descriptive of the rustic setting which Bobo called home as a youngster. Jump into this read and take the time to learn a bit more about Africa than you already know.

[lizamichelle1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I did not find this book as interesting as I hoped. The disorganization of events did not sit well with me. All I know for sure is they were poor Anglo-Saxons living in Africa, [somewhat] racist and lived through many wars.

[jessibud2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was an interesting read. Alexandra Fuller writes of her life growing up in Africa, from the perspective of her childhood memories and impressions. The writing was vivid, honest and at times, both heartbreaking and harrowing. The choices made by her parents, and the life they chose to carve out for themselves in some of the harshest places in Africa was a rough one, and not always easy to read. Over and over, I felt grateful and relieved to have grown up where I did, in the life that I did, safe and secure, above all else. Boring perhaps but then, I guess I am just not an adventurous spirit. Her style of hyphenating several words to create a new word or phrase is creative, I suppose, but began to wear on me and annoy after awhile, but apart from that, the writing was fine.What intrigued me more, though, if I am to be honest, was googling her after finishing the book and watching her speak on several youtube interviews. She comes across as a very articulate, intelligent and *together* type of person, and that made me feel good; to know that in spite of her rather un-typical upbringing, she has forged a life for herself that is productive, successful and positive. I would seek out others of her books.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alexandra Fuller's memoir of growing up in Africa was first of all, compulsively readable. I had a hard time putting it down. As is often the case in memoirs, her parents are kind of crazy, and it's easy to be as amused by their antics as you are appalled. Bobo, as Fuller is known in the book, is raised on a series of small, barely profitable tobacco farms in Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe), Malawi, and Zambia.She's a bit of a wild child, as is probably to be expected from the combination of permissive parents, remote locations, and a backdrop of civil war and societal unrest. Her family goes into town in a convoy including soldiers and their own mine-proofed SUV. She drinks, smokes, and learns to shoot an Uzi at an early age. The casual racism of the time and situation are presented without commentary or explanation, which can be interpreted as brave. I think there is often a tendency to want to rush in after the fact and explain it away, to reassure the reader than you know much better now. But at the same time, I was left curious regarding how Fuller feels about all of that now.There's no doubt that Fuller and her family have deep roots and a sincere love for the physical land of Africa, but I found myself contemplating what it really means to love a country when you're simultaneously oppressing and displacing its people. (Yes, I'm aware of clear parallels to the original American settlers - and that brings up the idea of history being written by the victors. The Americans won their country, while the English/Dutch etc were mostly driven out of Africa; is that the difference?) Although the family in the book isn't perpetrating many of the most egregious acts of colonialism, the fact remains that their farm is on land that only white people could own, they have black servants, and they clearly think the black Africans are inferior. Is it possible to really love a place without accepting its people?Quote: "There is only one time of absolute silence. Halfway between the dark of night and the light of morning, all animals and crickets and birds fall into a profound silence as if pressed quiet by the deep quality of the blackest time of night. This is when we are startled awake by Dad on tobacco-sale day. This silence is how I know it is not yet dawn, nor is it the middle of the night, but it is the place of no-time, when all things sleep most deeply, when their guard is dozing, and when terrorists (who know this fact) are most likely to attack."

[nandadevi_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An almost perfect companion piece to Peter Godwin's 'Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa' - another childhood account of life in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Perhaps it's something about the angle from which they view the world, but a childhood remembered somehow seems to convey more about the 'white tribe of Africa' than many scholarly accounts. Their uneasy relationship with the land and the people of Africa is conveyed perfectly, but - as becomes clear - their relationship to Africa is stronger than their connection with the rest of the world. As others have noted, this is a classic on just about every level. Very highly recommended, but noting that this is strong stuff.

[ljhliesl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This had been on my to-read list since the friends who founded Good Books Lately included it among their first recommendations. It's remarkable for its blatant, unquestioning racism; for how you find yourself inescapably in these alien lands, nations, cultures; for its descriptions of weather and landscape. It doesn't cohere into a single narrative with development and a plot but not everything has to.

[elizabethandrew-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A vivid portrait of growing up white in central Africa. Fuller's love for her parents' hard-scrabble farms and the African landscape is palpable; her writing is lovely. She's unabashed about her family's post-colonial, racial attitudes, which made me wish for more reflection. With memoirs like this that are primarily a record of childhood, I usually wonder WHY these stories might matter, to the author or to her reader. But I did enjoy the read.

"What I can’t know about Africa as a child (because I have no memory of any other place) is her smell; hot, sweet, smoky, salty, sharp-soft. It is like black tea, cut tobacco, fresh fire, old sweat, young grass. When, years later, I leave the continent for the first time and arrive in the damp wool sock of London-Heathrow, I am (as soon as I poke my head up from the intestinal process of travel) most struck not by the sight, but by the smell of England. How flat-empty it is; car fumes, concrete, street-wet." (130)

[astrologerjenny · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a vividly and clearly written memoir of growing up in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. The author’s parents are British colonials, come to farm the open land of Africa. They have five children there, and lose three of them, and one of the surviving daughters, Bobo, tells this story. Everyone and everything is described quickly, tersely and tellingly. At times it’s beautiful, at times funny, at times alarming, and only occasionally gentle.

No judgments are offered, and we fully enter into Bobo’s world. We see all the ways in which she was quintessentially African, and also all the ways in which she grew up separated from Africa.

[olevia-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Why I didn't read this a decade ago, I have no idea. Sometimes I'm just dumb. I'm not sure I could have lived through such a childhood in as graceful a manner as "Bobo" Fuller.

[satyridae · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This fascinating memoir was much less about the African surroundings in which Fuller grew up and more about her immediate household. For all their flaws, her family sounded engaging and warm when not depressive or drunk. The writing was mostly solid, but there were some gaps in the narrative which were troubling. This became more apparent at the end of the book. An interesting read.

[cat1ballou · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Don't tell the person who gave this to me for Christmas. I do still want to read her other book, Cowboy: The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, though.

[maggie1944 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Finished reading Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight and am in love with it. What a charming, disturbing, romping book it is. Alexandra Fuller tells of her childhood in east Africa as a part of a "hard scrabble" family moving from one country to another, constantly ducking the danger of being white in a land rediscovering its black power. The empires were dying and a new "order" had not yet emerged but this family with a mother who was at best very eccentric and at worst was mentally ill, and a father who just put his head down and kept working, and two girls who had not choice, this family kept finding ways to survive and sometimes thrive.I loved the book. When I was about 8 my mother thought she was dying of TB and "gave" me to her best friend. This friend, Johanna, took me to Kate and Emmett's farm in central Idaho where I wandered about in the heat of summer with the pigs, and cows, and chickens, magpies, and wind rustling through the trees. I developed a soul deep love for "country" and the heat of summer, the smells of dusty barns, of chicken shit, and watching the chickens flow around in the grass after their heads had been chopped off. I particularly remember the smell of cleaning the chicken so Kate could cook it for us.All these Idaho memories gave me the capacity to viscerally understand Alexandra's love for her African countryside, with all the dirt, and bugs, and dangerous animals. I know that feeling of running amok in the country, and wish every child should be so lucky as to have that experience.I recommend this book heartily and I think I'll try to find a way to add some of the books she recommends to my lists of books I must find time to read.

[smits_52 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful perspective. Real and alive and well written. The author shows us the real Africa in all its lawlessness,heat, beauty and uglyness . Atill youknow her great love for her birthplace. I am keen to read her other books

[georgia3bets · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Life in south Africa from the viewpoint of a young girl growing up in a flawed land and flawed family.

[rosies_38 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

well-written, non-self-serving memoir