Summary
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness tells the story of the author's mother, Nicola Fuller. Nicola Fuller and her husband were a glamorous and optimistic couple and East Africa lay before them with the promise of all its perfect light, even as the British Empire in which they both believed waned. They had everything, including two golden children - a girl and a boy. However, life became increasingly difficult and they moved to Rhodesia to work as farm managers. The previous farm manager had committed suicide. His ghost appeared at the foot of their bed and seemed to be trying to warn them of something. Shortly after this, one of their golden children died. Africa was no longer the playground of Nicola's childhood. They returned to England where the author was born before they returned to Rhodesia and to the civil war. The last part of the book sees the Fullers in their old age on a banana and fish farm in the Zambezi Valley. They had built their ramshackle dining room under the Tree of Forgetfulness. In local custom, this tree is the meeting place for villagers determined to resolve disputes. It is in the spirit of this Forgetfulness that Nicola finally forgot - but did not forgive - all her enemies including her daughter and the Apostle, a squatter who has taken up in her bananas with his seven wives and forty-nine children. Funny, tragic, terrifying, exotic and utterly unself-conscious, this is a story of survival and madness, love and war, passion and compassion.
Author Notes
Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972, she moved with her family to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). At the end of that country's civil war, the family moved to Malawi and later Zambia. Fuller received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada after which she returned to Zambia where she worked with a safari company. In 1993, Fuller and her husband settled near Livingstone on the banks of the Zambezi River. In 1994, she left Africa and moved to Wyoming, USA In 2011, her book Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness made Publisher's Weekly Best seller list. Fuller's title, Leaving Before the Rains Come, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2015.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A sardonic follow-up to her first memoir about growing up in Rhodesia circa the 1970s, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, this work traces in wry, poignant fashion the lives of her intrepid British parents, determined to stake a life on their farm despite the raging African civil war around them. Fuller's mother is the central figure, Nicola Fuller of Central, as she is known, born "one million percent Highland Scottish"; she grew up mostly in Kenya in the 1950s, was schooled harshly by the nuns in Eldoret, learned to ride horses masterfully, and married a dashing Englishman before settling down on their own farm, first in Kenya, then Rhodesia, where the author (known as Bobo) and her elder sister, Vanessa, were born in the late 1960s. The outbreak of civil war in the mid-1970s resolved the family to dig in deeper on their farm in Robandi, rather than flee, to order to preserve a life of colonial privilege and engrained racism that was progressively vanishing. While the girls dispersed as grownups (the author lives in Wyoming with her American husband), the parents managed to secure a fish and banana farm in the middle of the Zambezi valley in Zambia, and under a legendary Tree of Forgetfulness (where ancestors are supposed to reside and help resolve trouble) they ruminate with their visitors over the long-gone days, full of death and loss, the ravages of war, and a determination to carry on. Fuller achieves another beautifully wrought memoir. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In her fourth memoir, Fuller revisits her vibrant, spirited parents, first introduced in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (2002), which her mother referred to as tha. awful book. While that so-calle. awful boo. focused on Fuller's memories of growing up in Rhodesia during that country's civil war, this one focuses solely on her parents: their youth, their meeting, and their struggles to find a home on the continent they are both so passionate about. Fuller's mother, Nicola, the child of Scottish parents, grew up in Kenya, while her father, Tim, had an austere childhood in London. Tim wandered the world before landing in Kenya and meeting Nicola. Readers will recall the hardships the couple faced from Fuller's first memoir: the deaths of three of their five children and the loss of their home in Rhodesia. This time around, Nicola is well aware her daughter is writing another memoir, and shares some of her memories under the titular Tree of Forgetfulness, which looms large by the elder Fullers' house in Zambia. Fuller's prose is so beautiful and so evocative that readers will feel that they, too, are sitting under that tree. A gorgeous tribute to both her parents and the land they love.--Huntley, Kristin. Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Fuller's previous well-received memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood dealt with her time growing up amid the harsh realities of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) during civil war in the 1970s. In her new memoir, billed as a combination of prequel and sequel, she focuses on her mother, Nicola Fuller, whose adventurous spirit, droll humor, and abiding love for Africa were challenged by the tragic deaths of three of her young children and her subsequent mental breakdown. Fuller evocatively depicts her mother's Kenya childhood, marriage to Tim Fuller, and the ensuing chaos and joys of raising a family and eking out a precarious living amid the wild and inspiring African landscape. Her eloquent depiction of her mother's darker sides, including racism, alcoholism, and mental illness, reveals a fascinating, flawed, and funny woman whose story illuminates the contradictions and extremes of Africa -itself. -VERDICT Unsparing, well written, and spiced with many compelling anecdotes, this vivid tale of a one-of-a-kind matriarch and her family's fortitude through adversity and absurdity will be relished by memoir fans and recreational readers interested in Africa. Such readers may also enjoy Isak Dinesen's classic Out of Africa or Barbara Kingsolver's dark novel The Poisonwood Bible. [See Prepub Alert, 1/31/11.]-Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Praise for Alexandra Fuller's Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness "[E]lectrifying . . . Writing in shimmering, musical prose . . . Ms. Fuller manages the difficult feat of writing about her mother and father with love and understanding, while at the same time conveying the terrible human costs of the colonialism they supported. . . . Although Ms. Fuller would move to America with her husband in 1994, her own love for Africa reverberates throughout these pages, making the beauty and hazards of that land searingly real for the reader." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Ten years after publishing Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood , Alexandra (Bobo) Fuller treats us in this wonderful book to the inside scoop on her glamorous, tragic, indomitable mother. . . . Bobo skillfully weaves together the story of her romantic, doomed family against the background of her mother's remembered childhood." -- The Washington Post "Another stunner . . . The writer's finesse at handling the element of time is brilliant, as she interweaves near-present-day incidents with stories set in the past. Both are equally vivid. . . . With Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness Alexandra Fuller, master memoirist, brings her readers new pleasure. Her mum should be pleased." -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer "Fuller's narrative is a love story to Africa and her family. She plumbs her family story with humor, memory, old photographs, and a no-nonsense attitude toward family foibles, follies, and tragedy. The reader is rewarded with an intimate family story played out against an extraordinary landscape, told with remarkable grace and style." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune "[Fuller] conveys the magnetic pull that Africa could exert on the colonials who had a taste for it, the powerful feeling of attachment. She does not really explain that feeling--she is a writer who shows rather than tells--but through incident and anecdote she makes its effects clear, and its costs." -- The Wall Street Journal "[A]n artistic and emotional feat." -- The Boston Globe "[An] eccentric, quixotic, and downright dangerous tale with full room for humor, love, and more than a few highballs." -- The Huffington Post " Cocktail Hour [ Under the Tree of Forgetfulness ] subtly explores the intersections of personality, history, and landscape in ways that are continually fresh and thoughtful." -- Charleston Post and Courier "Gracefully recounted using family recollections and photos, the author plumbs the narrative with a humane and clear-eyed gaze--a lush story, largely lived within a remarkable place and time." -- Kirkus Reviews "In this sequel to her 2001 memoir, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight , which her unflattered mum calls the 'Awful Book,' Duller gives a warm yet wry account of her British parents' arduous life in Africa. . . . With searing honesty and in blazingly vibrant prose, Fuller re-creates her mother's glorified Kenyan girlhood and visits her forever-wild parents at their Zambian banana and fish farm today. The result is an entirely Awesome Book." -- More Magazine "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 "Fuller revisits her vibrant, spirited parents, first introduced in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (2001), which her mother referred to as that 'awful book'. . . . This time around, Nicola is well aware her daughter is writing another memoir, and shares some of her memories under the titular Tree of Forgetfulness, which looms large by the elder Fullers' house in Zambia. Fuller's prose is so beautiful and so evocative that readers will feel that they, too, are sitting under that tree. A gorgeous tribute to both her parents and the land they love." -- Booklist (starred review) "A sardonic follow-up to her first memoir about growing up in Rhodesia circa the 1970s, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight , this work traces in wry, poignant fashion the lives of her intrepid British parents. . . . Fuller achieves another beautifully wrought memoir." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) PENGUIN BOOKS COCKTAIL HOUR UNDER THE TREE OF FORGETFULNESS 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 mid-twenties. In 1994 she moved to Wyoming, where she now resides. For Charlie--guide extraordinaire--with my love Table of Contents Praise for Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness About the Author Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Cast of Main Characters PART ONE Nicola Fuller of Central Africa Learns to Fly Nicola Huntingford Is Born Nicola Fuller and the Fancy Dress Parties Roger Huntingford's War Nicola Huntingford Learns to Ride Nicola Fuller of Central Africa Goes to Her High School Reunion Nicola Huntingford, the Afrikaner and the Perfect Horse Nicola Huntingford and the Mau Mau PART TWO Tim Fuller of No Fixed Abode Nicola Fuller and the Perfect House Nicola Fuller in Rhodesia: Round One Nicola Fuller in England Nicola Fuller in Rhodesia: Round Two Olivia Nicola Fuller and the End of Rhodesia PART THREE Nicola Fuller of Central Africa and the Tree of Forgetfulness Nicola Fuller of Central Africa at Home Acknowledgments Appendix - Nicola Fuller of Central Africa: The Soundtrack Glossary CAST OF MAIN CHARACTERS Nicola Christine Victoria Fuller née Huntingford--the author's mother, also known as Nicola Fuller of Central Africa, Mum or Tub Timothy Donald Fuller--the author's father, also known as Dad Vanessa Margaret Fuller--the author's sister, also known as Van Edith Margaret Belfinley Huntingford née Macdonald--the author's maternal grandmother, also known as Granny or Donnie or Mrs. Huntingford Roger Lowther Huntingford--the author's maternal grandfather, also known as Hodge Glennis Duthie--the author's maternal aunt, also known as Auntie Glug or Glug Sandy Duthie--the author's maternal uncle by marriage Donald Hamilton Connell-Fuller--the author's paternal grandfather Ruth Henrietta Fuller--the author's paternal grandmother, also known as Boofy Tony Fuller--the author's paternal uncle, also known as Uncle Toe Alexandra Fuller--the author, also known as Bo or Bobo PART ONE The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind. --KATHERINE MANSFIELD Nicola Fuller of Central Africa Learns to Fly Mkushi, Zambia, circa 1986 Mum in an Eldoret theatrical production. Kenya, circa 1963. O ur 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. Excerpted from Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
