Leaving Before the Rains Come
Alexandra Fuller
The sequel to the bestselling Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Born in England and uprooted to southern Africa as a toddler by her parents, Alexandra Fuller experienced a unique upbringing – both coloured with tragedy and joy – against the backdrop of the Rhodesian wars. Following her marriage to American Charlie Ross, she leaves Africa for Wyoming in the United States. This sequel to the bestselling Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight vividly captures the highs, lows and ultimate dissolution of Fuller’s twenty-year marriage and her unbreakable tie to her African past as she searches for explanations for the present and answers for the future.
Interlaced with stories from her childhood in Africa, Fuller paints a brilliant picture of an expatriate’s love for her homeland, a daughter’s acceptance of her father and the moving journey of her marriage and divorce. Poignant, candid and wistfully humorous, Leaving Before the Rains Come will resonate with anyone who has ever fallen out of love – with a person, idea or a place – and into self-acceptance and the belief that only we can save ourselves.
‘Remarkable, beautifully written and fantastically entertaining… a compulsive read’ Observer
Product Details
About Alexandra Fuller
Reviews for Leaving Before the Rains Come
Observer
[An] honest, powerful and moving memoir
Kate Figes
Mail on Sunday
[An] urgent, eloquently fearless book
Guardian
[A] bold, brave memoir of [Fuller’s] emancipation from the past
The Times
Fuller doesn’t write misery memoirs. She writes warm, humorous and honest memoirs, and Leaving Before the Rains Come is another must-read
Sunday Express
What sets [the book] apart is Fuller’s prose, as biting and beautiful as ever. It is often laugh-out-loud-funny too
Mail on Sunday
A poetic and powerful account of a troubled marriage, sensitive, frank and full of insight into the human condition
Daily Express
[A] hauntingly beautiful memoir
Daily Mail
Unquestionable is the lucid beauty of Fuller’s prose and her courage in producing it
Patricia Nicol, 4 stars
Metro
A trenchant yet riveting examination of what [Alexandra Fuller] calls the “culture” of the end of a marriage
The Bookseller