Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

I have seen Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight countless times at our local bookstores over the past few years.  And it is the oddest thing, really, because every time I saw this book, I thought it was about a family in Newark, New Jersey, who happened to be in the restaurant business.  Odd, no?  And I've no idea where this assumption even came from.  Anyway, it doesn't take place in New Jersey (or anywhere near New Jersey, for that matter).  It takes place in Africa -- first Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), then Malawi, and finally Zambia.

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is a memoir written by Alexandra Fuller.  In it she recounts both her childhood, and her family's story, during the war of independence (or the war of liberation, or just simply the war.  I'm never really sure what to call it.)  The Fullers (that would be Tim, Nicola, Vanessa, and Bobo [a.k.a. Alexandra]) are historically from Great Britain, but are very deeply rooted in Africa.  They are also a family of farmers.  Having just read Peter Godwin's When the Crocodile Eats the Sun, I was quite interested in reading a story of an actual farm that fell victim to Mugabe's government.  (I am so grateful that I read Godwin's book first, by the way.  It gave me the background necessary to understand the whys and hows of Fuller's amazing story.)

At any rate, the book begins like this:

Mum says, 'Don't come creeping into our room at night.'
They sleep with loaded guns beside them on the bedside rugs.  She says, 'Don't startle us when we are sleeping.'
'Why not?'
'We might shoot you.'
'Oh.'
'By mistake.'
'Okay.'  As it is, there seems a good enough chance of getting shot on purpose.  'Okay, I won't.'

And there you go.  How could one possibly not like this book?  And how could one not like her mom, for that matter.  Bobo's mother, Nicola, is an astonishing woman**.  She is drunk most of the time, wildly racist, and has, quite literally, serious bouts of lunacy.  Yet she is magnificent.  What makes her thus is the sheer fact that she was a capable woman.  She and her husband ran enormous farms -- quite successfully, too.  She shot a cobra to bits in their kitchen pantry when it was threatening her dogs and her children.  She rounded up a bunch of wild cattle, with the help of Bobo (aged ten), and turned them into a business opportunity.  She read Shakespeare, rescued dogs, sewed curtains, operated a bit of a medical clinic from their house, and saved the life of their maid Violet, who had been slashed all over and left for dead.  She was haunted by the deaths of her children (three in all) and grieved them continuously.  Not to mention the fact that the woman liked her drink. (No, really, she liked to drink.)  But do you see what I mean?  Capable.  And not likely to go out without a fight.           

There is something about Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight that I found captivating.  I absolutely loved the way that the story is told.  While there were utter atrocities going on all around them, there is a definite humor that Fuller was able to find.  And I think that she has a great gift of conjuring the magic of childhood -- despite the catastrophic circumstances surrounding her.  I also greatly admired her honesty in telling her family's story, because goodness knows that could not have been easy. 

I found myself, time and time again, recognizing something in Bobo, as crazy as that may sound.  Our worlds are night and day.  Yet she now lives in Wyoming.  I, too, am from Wyoming -- it is still the state that I have lived in longer than anywhere else.  She had three siblings die.  My little brother died when I was about the age she was when Olivia died.  (In fact, I think that Olivia and David were even the same age.)  Her family hunted and lived very much off the land.  My lineage is very much Wyoming ranchers, avid hunters, and the like.  Maybe that is why I laughed so much when I read the first page of her book.  I have never lived in a war-zone/war-torn country.  But I do have a brother who used to sleep with his shot gun right next to him when he would go to visit my mom and David.

And so, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is a fantastic read.  I have since been scouring the last pages of the book, and loading up my Amazon shopping cart with all the books she suggests.  Because, alas, my do-it-yourself African Lit. course continues.  And maybe once I've exhausted that front, I'll pick up her latest book on Wyoming.

**Bobo's father refers to her mother as 'Tub'.  I believe it is safe to say that if my husband ever called me Tub, I'd slap him flat.  Maybe it's a cultural term of endearment or something.