Good Books Lately | Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

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				Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight Alexandra Fuller. Random House: 2003 (paperback). ISBN: 0375758992. 288 pages.

The first thing we ought to say about this memoir by Alexandra Fuller is that it may be the most brutally honest reminiscence of Rhodesia by a white African that has ever come out of that lovely but unlucky region. The second thing would be that it's unbelievably well-written and defiantly readable. Even if we can't sympathize with Fuller's account of her family's role as unquestioning rulers of their own small domain and the native Africans who populate it, it doesn't matter, because Fuller doesn't ask us to do so. This is a story of a childhood of a young woman who isn't afraid to admit that she was the center of her own universe, that she was primarily concerned with protecting her own personal comfort, just as children who are well-fed and much-loved do everywhere. Only it just so happens that this particular child's comforts are inextricably connected with her white family's relative position of power over their black neighbors, a power that is slowly deteriorating as an anti-colonial war heats up. This has got to be one of the very best and most unforgettable memoirs we have read in years. As seen on Ellen on Seven. Read more about the guide