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Biography & Autobiography. Family & Relationships. Nonfiction. HTML:The New York Times Bestseller from the author of Travel Light, Move Fast "One of the gutsiest memoirs I've ever read. And the writing—oh my god the writing."—Entertainment Weekly A child of the Rhodesian wars and daughter of two deeply complicated parents, Alexandra Fuller is no stranger to pain. But the disintegration of Fuller’s own marriage leaves her shattered. Looking to pick up the pieces of her life, she finally confronts the tough questions about her past, about the American man she married, and about the family she left behind in Africa. A breathtaking achievement, Leaving Before the Rains Come is a memoir of such grace and intelligence, filled with such wit and courage, that it could only have been written by Alexandra Fuller. Leaving Before the Rains Come begins with the dreadful first years of the American financial crisis when Fuller’s delicate balance—between American pragmatism and African fatalism, the linchpin of her unorthodox marriage—irrevocably fails. Recalling her unusual courtship in Zambia—elephant attacks on the first date, sick with malaria on the wedding day—Fuller struggles to understand her younger self as she overcomes her current misfortunes. Fuller soon realizes what is missing from her life is something that was always there: the brash and uncompromising ways of her father, the man who warned his daughter that "the problem with most people is that they want to be alive for as long as possible without having any idea whatsoever how to live." Fuller’s father—"Tim Fuller of No Fixed Abode" as he first introduced himself to his future wife—was a man who regretted nothing and wanted less, even after fighting harder and losing more than most men could bear. Leaving Before the Rains Come showcases Fuller at the peak of her abilities, threading panoramic vistas with her deepest revelations as a fully grown woman and mother. Fuller reveals how, after spending a lifetime fearfully waiting for someone to show up and save her, she discovered that, in the end, we all simply have to save ourselves. An unforgettable book, Leaving Before the Rains Come is a story of sorrow grounded in the tragic grandeur and rueful joy only to be found in Fuller’s Africa.… (more)
User reviews
I am giving this book 4.25 stars with the caveat that in order to fully appreciate it, one should read her preceding two memoirs first. Fuller
"For a while, in that same Peugeot, it was possible to watch the road whip by as we drove, dust billowing up into the backseat in a reddish film until Mum put bits of cardboard down where the floorboards had rusted through. She painted sunsets, giraffes, and flowers on the cardboard, and signed her name in the corners with a flourish, 'Like the Sistine Chapel, only not on the ceiling,' she said. 'Although I wouldn't stand on it if I were you, or you'll plop right out.' Which served to prove to me from an early age that imminent danger and innovative beauty were often closely linked."
I love Fuller's first two books - Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and Cocktails Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, but this volume seems altogether too self-indulgent.She marries her husband because he will "keep her safe" and protect her from the dangerous chaos of Southern Africa but then becomes disenchanted when he turns out to be just a successful American. Paging Dr. Freud: we get that you wanted a more stable version of your father, but it doesn't warrant 258 pages of naval gazing. She never seems to realize that the secret to her parents' long marriage is that they didn't think about it too much.
Ms. Fuller is now living in a yurt in Wyoming with a 49-year-old artist. “I feel like I’ve been in a white-water river for 45 years,” she said recently. “Now I’m just lying around the yurt. I couldn’t have been more in need of a place to rest.” Let's hope after she has rested she'll find something new & better to write about.
In the end, though, I'm not sure I really understand what the problem was with her marriage, and maybe she's not either (or maybe she
Not least, and this is a sort of petty thing, but as a single woman I really appreciate a memoir that does not end all wrapped up in a wedding bow. She had a love story, a family. She has a painful divorce and a massive identity shift and she just tells that story. She leaves it where she is, she doesn't get rescued by a new relationship, she doesn't suddenly have an epiphany that leads to wealth or travel. It's not easy on her or her husband or her kids, but they survive it, and that's what I, as a reader and another real person need to see -- the crap comes and you survive it. Your heart breaks and you survive it.
I hope that there are more stories in the future, because I love spending reading time with her.