Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Travel Light, Move Fast
Alexandra Fuller
Review by Priscilla Comen
Travel Light, Move Fast
Alexandra Fuller
Review by Priscilla Comen
Travel Light, Move Fast, by Alexandra Fuller, is the memoir of her life in Rhodesia with her dad and mum. Her dad had moved to Africa to fight in the Rhodesian Bush war. His daughter, Alexandra, remembers his lessons with courage and irreverence. During the war, the whole country was turned into a battlefield. Her mum refuses to remember. Her father always said, “Travel Light; Move Fast” and Alexandra did.
He ran over himself with his car, and was the worst patient in the hospital. He hated hospitals, mum smuggled in brandy by the gallons under her 1970s kaftans. Alexandra stayed by her dad’s bed all day as he lay dying. The nurse had posted visiting hours as half an hour in morning and evening for the ICU. Alex is stubborn, but so is the nurse. She talks about their smoking habits, and her dad’s love for parties. A dinner party for him was a religious experience. Vanessa and Alexandra’s parents moved often, twenty times in all, for all sorts of reasons.
After her father dies in the Budapest hospital, she and her mum walk away to talk about the “blood moon” they’d seen last night. Surely dad had seen it too, before he died. So he was not alone, although they were not there. Dad was always ready to leave when a place became unwelcoming or too tame, or too crowded. He loved the ranch best when the wildlife returned: kudus, warthogs, impalas, leopards. Vanessa and Alex slept in canvas tents, boiled water over an open fire as dad and his helpers built fences for the cattle. They tagged along when the men tracked stray cattle.
Alexandra writes about her dad hunting a zebra with the tension of hunting a man. They got lost and bounced over dark brown, clay earth all night. But they ate the zebra and its coat lay in front of their fireplace for many years. Her aunts said repeatedly, “Tom Fuller went to Africa and lost everything.” This was true, but their motto was “keep buggering on.” (KBO) This was stolen from Winston Churchill.
With dad’s cremated remains in a neat box, Alex and her mum make their plans to fly home to Africa. They knew what to do, but not what to do now. Dad had always said, “Do something.” In time, the English had eroded out of dad. He’d become heroic. For six years they’d officially been Rhodesian. They say good-bye to Budapest and fly home, Alexandra holding dad on her lap and mum drinking whatever the steward brings her. Dad hated computers and Bill Gates who had designed them. His computer lasted only twelve years then he had it fixed by a Zambian man and he was pleased.
When they look through his belongings they find telegrams from their wedding, his post office savings bank book, and other mementoes. Who would have thought he was so sentimental? They have a small service with close friends and family. Mum copes well but is carried to bed feet first. Alexandra writes what she knows and does so tenderly. Their farm in the Zambezi Valley was dad’s final gesture of love to mum. “It’ll be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it’s not the end,” he always said.
Find this tender, loving memoir on the new non-fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
He ran over himself with his car, and was the worst patient in the hospital. He hated hospitals, mum smuggled in brandy by the gallons under her 1970s kaftans. Alexandra stayed by her dad’s bed all day as he lay dying. The nurse had posted visiting hours as half an hour in morning and evening for the ICU. Alex is stubborn, but so is the nurse. She talks about their smoking habits, and her dad’s love for parties. A dinner party for him was a religious experience. Vanessa and Alexandra’s parents moved often, twenty times in all, for all sorts of reasons.
After her father dies in the Budapest hospital, she and her mum walk away to talk about the “blood moon” they’d seen last night. Surely dad had seen it too, before he died. So he was not alone, although they were not there. Dad was always ready to leave when a place became unwelcoming or too tame, or too crowded. He loved the ranch best when the wildlife returned: kudus, warthogs, impalas, leopards. Vanessa and Alex slept in canvas tents, boiled water over an open fire as dad and his helpers built fences for the cattle. They tagged along when the men tracked stray cattle.
Alexandra writes about her dad hunting a zebra with the tension of hunting a man. They got lost and bounced over dark brown, clay earth all night. But they ate the zebra and its coat lay in front of their fireplace for many years. Her aunts said repeatedly, “Tom Fuller went to Africa and lost everything.” This was true, but their motto was “keep buggering on.” (KBO) This was stolen from Winston Churchill.
With dad’s cremated remains in a neat box, Alex and her mum make their plans to fly home to Africa. They knew what to do, but not what to do now. Dad had always said, “Do something.” In time, the English had eroded out of dad. He’d become heroic. For six years they’d officially been Rhodesian. They say good-bye to Budapest and fly home, Alexandra holding dad on her lap and mum drinking whatever the steward brings her. Dad hated computers and Bill Gates who had designed them. His computer lasted only twelve years then he had it fixed by a Zambian man and he was pleased.
When they look through his belongings they find telegrams from their wedding, his post office savings bank book, and other mementoes. Who would have thought he was so sentimental? They have a small service with close friends and family. Mum copes well but is carried to bed feet first. Alexandra writes what she knows and does so tenderly. Their farm in the Zambezi Valley was dad’s final gesture of love to mum. “It’ll be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it’s not the end,” he always said.
Find this tender, loving memoir on the new non-fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.