Alexandra Fuller is best known for her autobiography Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight about her childhood growing up in Africa (see my review here). She has also written Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness about the life of her complex and often difficult mother (see my review here). This book, Travel Light, Move Fast is about her father and centres on his death and her grief. It’s not a sad book, however, but one about facing up to challenges and making the best that you can of what life gives you.
The author’s father came from a British family who had lived in Africa and he spent his life farming in what was Rhodesia and in Zambia. He had a difficult struggle against independence movements and forfeiture of land as well as the challenges of making a farm pay in times of change and civil unrest. The author obviously adored her father and this book tells us about his life but also about the values that were important to him and his love of the continent which made him carry on doing what he knew best.
This is a celebration of a life and also of a lifestyle which probably no longer exists but it’s also a book about grief and how that affected the whole family, but particularly the author. There is much of the author’s life story after Africa included in these pages and I would advise reading the earlier books first before you come to this one to get some background.
I enjoyed this book a lot. The author writes well and her love for her father and the country come through the narrative and enhance it. This is an honest portrayal of a way of life and values which were once important but are maybe less so now – I don’t always agree with the author’s father (and nor does she) but it is useful and interesting to read this glimpse into a very different life.
Anne Is Reading 