I totally, TOTALLY loved this book!!!!! I know I tshould think a bit before I write something, but I am carried away by my emotions. I love the family, all of them. How can I love them, they are so very far from any way I could live my own life, but nevertheless I love them to pieces. Their lives are hard, but they get through, one step at a time. They know what is important. They don't demand too much. Oh the mother, my heart bled for her. I know she is manic, but who wouldn't be living through what she does. Africa is hard, but on the other side I grew to truly love it. OK, I couldn't live there but this author made me love Africa and that is strange because it has so many problems, there is so much wrong, so much that has to be fixed. The dialog is beautiful:
Mun has been diagnosed with manic depression. She says. 'All of us are mad,' and then adds, smiling, 'but I am the only one with a certificate to prove it.'
The photos are straight from the family album. You see the kids, the one's that survive, growing up.
I dye Mum's hair a streaky porcupine blonde and shave my legs just to see if I need to. Vanessa experiments with eye shadow and looks as if she has been punched. I try and make meringues and the resulting glue is eaten clench-jawed dutifulness by my family. Mum encourages me not to waste precious eggs on any more cooking projects. I learn what I hope are the words to Bizet's Carmen and sing the entire opera to the dogs. ..... I smoke in front of the mirror and try to look like a hardened sex goddess. Vanessa declares, hopelessly that she is thinking of running away from home. I stare out at the nothingness into which she would run and say, 'I'll come with you.' Mum says, 'Me too.'
And then when the author gets married, on the way to the ceremony, sitting in the car with her father who is now driving and has just handed her a gin and tonic to combat both nerves and a persistent case of malaria, her father says, "You're not bad looking once they scrape the mud off you and put you in a dress."
This family is so real. You learn to love Africa despite all its troubles. As the tension build in the novel the author knows when it has reached the breaking point and throws in some humor. As in life, when times are bad, you pick up the pieces, take a deep breath and go one. What other choice do you have?
And of course you learn about Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.
Mun has been diagnosed with manic depression. She says. 'All of us are mad,' and then adds, smiling, 'but I am the only one with a certificate to prove it.'
The photos are straight from the family album. You see the kids, the one's that survive, growing up.
I dye Mum's hair a streaky porcupine blonde and shave my legs just to see if I need to. Vanessa experiments with eye shadow and looks as if she has been punched. I try and make meringues and the resulting glue is eaten clench-jawed dutifulness by my family. Mum encourages me not to waste precious eggs on any more cooking projects. I learn what I hope are the words to Bizet's Carmen and sing the entire opera to the dogs. ..... I smoke in front of the mirror and try to look like a hardened sex goddess. Vanessa declares, hopelessly that she is thinking of running away from home. I stare out at the nothingness into which she would run and say, 'I'll come with you.' Mum says, 'Me too.'
And then when the author gets married, on the way to the ceremony, sitting in the car with her father who is now driving and has just handed her a gin and tonic to combat both nerves and a persistent case of malaria, her father says, "You're not bad looking once they scrape the mud off you and put you in a dress."
This family is so real. You learn to love Africa despite all its troubles. As the tension build in the novel the author knows when it has reached the breaking point and throws in some humor. As in life, when times are bad, you pick up the pieces, take a deep breath and go one. What other choice do you have?
And of course you learn about Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.