Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness - Softcover

Fuller, Alexandra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143121340 ISBN 13: 9780143121343

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2012

Synopsis

"Fuller brings Africa to life, both its natural splendor and the harsher realities of day-to-day existence, and sheds light on her parents in all their humanness--not a glaring sort of light, but the soft equatorial kind she so beautifully describes in this memoir." --Bookpage

A story of survival and war, love and madness, loyalty and forgiveness, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is an intimate exploration of Fuller's parents, whom readers first met in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, and of the price of being possessed by Africa's uncompromising, fertile, death-dealing land. We follow Tim and Nicola Fuller hopscotching the continent, restlessly trying to establish a home. War, hardship, and tragedy follow the family even as Nicola fights to hold on to her children, her land, her sanity. But just when it seems that Nicola has been broken by the continent she loves, it is the African earth that revives and nurtures her. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is Fuller at her very best.

Alexandra Fuller is the author of several memoirs: Travel Light, Move Fast, Leaving Before the Rains Come and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.

About this title

About the Author

Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972, she moved with her family to a farm in southern Africa. She lived in Africa until her midtwenties. In 1994, she moved to Wyoming. Fuller is the author of several memoirs, including Travel Light, Move Fast, Leaving Before the Rains Come, and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Nicola Fuller of Central Africa Learns to Fly

Our Mum—or Nicola Fuller of Central Africa, as she has on occasion preferred to introduce herself—has wanted a writer in the family as long as either of us can remember, not only because she loves books and has therefore always wanted to appear in them (the way she likes large, expensive hats, and likes to appear in them) but also because she has always wanted to live a fabulously romantic life for which she needed a reasonably pliable witness as scribe.

“At least she didn’t read you Shakespeare in the womb,” my sister says. “I think that’s what gave me brain damage.”

“You do not have brain damage,” I say.

“That’s what Mum says.”

“Well, I wouldn’t listen to her. You know what she’s like,” I say.

“I know,” Vanessa says.

“For example,” I say, “lately, she’s been telling me that I must have been switched at birth.”

“Really?” Vanessa tilts her head this way and that to get a better view of my features. “Let me have a look at your nose from the other side.”

“Stop it,” I cover my nose.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0143121340
• ISBN 13: 9780143121343
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256