Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

An African Childhood

By: Alexandra Fuller

Narrated by: Lisette Lecat

Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2001 Alexandra Fuller (P)2003 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

• Book Sense Book of the Year Award Winner, Adult Non-Fiction, 2003

"A classic is born in this tender, intensely moving and even delightful journey through a white African girl's childhood." (Publishers Weekly)
"This was no ordinary childhood, and it makes a riveting story thanks to an extraordinary telling." (School Library Journal)
"In this powerful debut, Fuller fully succeeds in memorializing the beauty of each desert puddle and each African summer night sky while also recognizing that beauty can lie hidden in the faces of those who have crossed her path. Highly recommended." (Library Journal)
"An honest, moving portrait of one family struggling to survive tumultuous times." (Booklist)

An African Childhood of Harrowing Proportions

This story of English ex-patriots living in a variety of countries in southern Africa with their children is amazing, bizarre, gruesome, violent and filled with disease. Most surprising to me was the fact that even one of them survived. At times, the details of the food and living conditions are so nauseating and disastrous that the title of the book--Go To The Dogs--seemed redundant. By this, I mean that it would be difficult for life to deteriorate further than the story presents. One war torn, drought ridden, broken down and hungry farm after another.

Through all this runs the strong and endearing voice of the author as the child "Bo-bo". Fuller's writing pulls all the loose ends, pain and disaster together and weaves a story of growing up in Africa. This story embodies her deep and visceral love for the place, the smells, the people and the creatures that inhabit that world. At one point in the writing she refers to her life as a child as a "terrifying unhinged blur". Believe me--she captured it in this book.

The narration was fantastic. It continually drove me forward--never allowing me to even consider giving up. This was my first book narrated by Lecat--but it won't be my last. Excellent reading--that added immensely to the whole experience.

Listening prompted me to do research about this time period in Africa's history. I read about each of the countries where the family lived--trying to make some sense of the choices and the reasons behind the decisions they made. It was not until the last hour or two of listening that I understood that all this didn't matter. It wasn't a book of African history--but rather a book of a family's history.

Hard to get into

Would you try another book from Alexandra Fuller and/or Lisette Lecat?

I doubt I would look for another book by Fuller. Lecat is a good narrator, but not so good that she can make a story that I didn't find compelling more so.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

There didn't seem to be a real goal in the writing of it.

Was Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight worth the listening time?

I read it for a book group and for that purpose it was, but I wouldn't have picked it up and finished it without that.

amazing

a real story of what africa was and is now after the so called war of liberation that liberated no one

Wow

The book was well written and held my interest but wow, what crazy parents, it's surprising that any of their children survived! Criminally careless.

A fabulous book, destined to be a classic

This is a wonderful, "coming-of-age" story, a nonfiction story, that is destined to become a classic. Perhaps not a major classic (e.g., Jane Austin or James Joyce or F Scott Fitzgerald) but certainly a minor classic (JD Salinger, etc.). The story is episodic, sounds very true, characters painted well above the usual caricature level in the usual lower quality works. The verbal narration is really good too ... so good in fact that the book may come across better in audio form than as a book (sound effects, exclamations, singing & so forth are part of the text). I know that on Amazon & elsewhere this book has sometimes been criticized for "missing the black experience" in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in the same period. Something that had to be equally, or more harrowing frankly. But the author can't be faulted for writing about her own experience, can she?

Difficult, but worthwhile

To begin with, this was a fascinating book. The author (who must now be in her 30s) grew up in several countries in Africa.

Her (white) parents, who were unashamedly racist, moved the family from one country to another when the white ruling classes were overthrown.

The author ("Bobo") describes the ordinariness of training children to apply tourniquets, bandage war wounds and insert and monitor IV fluids, all skills that were needed in the wars against various freedom fighters. In addition, Bobo talks about life with her severely alcoholic, bipolar, animal-loving and native-despising mother, her perenially unsuccessful father and her beautiful older sister.

The first part of the book, which concerns her young childhood, was very sad, but the second half, which describes the great beauty of Africa, and Bobo's experiences in non-segregated society, is fascinating and filled with her obvious love for the continent.

It wasn't an easy listen, but it was a truly illuminating one.

So different and honest

Fuller's biography about growing up as a white African during the 70s and 80s in each African country ruled/formerly ruled by the British is fascinating. She doesn't gloss over her own rough behavior or warts of her family. Their living experience is really interesting as it was totally different than growing up in the US during the same period.

As a Zimbabwean in diaspora I enjoyed this book

Took me a few days To listen to entire book. Hope to see more from Lisette

Living, breathing, fun

Where does Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Among the best.

What did you like best about this story?

It takes you all the way into a completely different world.
It is filled with unique, simpatico characters.
And it is deeply, wildly funny.

Terrific look at life in Africa in the 70s and 80s

Fascinating look of a youth's life in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia in the 1970s and 80s. Terrific insights into social and political life at the time in those countries. Author made you feel like you were actually there. Narrator is the best.