Sunday, December 1, 2019

Travel Light, Move Fast


Alexandra Fuller races to her beloved father’s deathbed while on vacation in Budapest. As she and her mother navigate this primitive healthcare system, they reminisce a lifetime of memories leading up to this moment. Alexandra expertly narrates her profound love for her father as she continues to fascinate us with their family’s outrageous African bush experiences. She beguiles the reader with the pandemonium that surrounded their various homes, farms and near fatal daily chaos. Alexandra simultaneously reflects on her present situation, including painful divorce, raising three children thousands of miles from “home” while living in Wisconsin and increasing difficulties mounting with her only sister. Alexandra is a magnificent storyteller and I am always mesmerized by life in the bush, but this fourth recount of the Fuller experience did not grasp my imagination as the others did. Reading like short stories loosely sewn together, the end felt disconnected and it would probably not be impactful as a standalone if you hadn’t read her other work. Alexandra’s first, “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” is one of my ALL time favorite reads EVER.

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