Scribbling the Cat - Softcover

Fuller, Alexandra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1770100016 ISBN 13: 9781770100015

Publisher: Picador Africa, 2004

Synopsis

"When Alexandra 'Bo' Fuller returns to her parents' farm in Zambia, she meets their charismatic neighbor, 'K', a hauntingly beautiful creature with a violent talent for survival. Helplessly fascinated by this man of extremes, she becomes enmeshed in the stories of his life and recklessly curious about his scars, both physical and emotional. Bo and K embark on a journey together, each searching for the answers that might offer some kind of relief from the constant sting of their shared history. This is their story - an exploration of life and death and the fear of living and dying and the difficulty of separating love and judgement from passion and duty.

About this title

Review:

Thomas Wolfe's trusted axiom about not being able to go home again gets a compelling spin through the African veldt in Alexandra Fuller's Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier. Fuller (Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight : An African Childhood) journeys through modern Zambia, to battlefields in Zimbabwe and Mozambique with the scarred veteran of the Rhodesian Wars she identifies only as "K." Intrigued by the mysterious neighbor of her parent's Zambian fish farm and further enticed by her father's warning that "curiosity scribbled the cat" ("scribbling" is Afrikaans slang for "killing"), Fuller embarks on a journey that covers as much cratered psychic landscape as it does African bush country. Though she and "K" are both African by family roots rather than blood, she quickly discovers that 30 years of civil war have scarred them--and the indigenous peoples they encounter--in markedly different ways. "K" is a figure of monumental tragedy, a decent man torn by war-fueled rage, a failed marriage, and painful memories of an only son lost to tropical disease. His adopted Christianity offers him only partial absolution, and Fuller details his gut-wrenching confessions of quarter-century old atrocities with compassion and rare insight. Her prose liberally salted with a rich, melange of Afrikaans and local Shona slang, Fuller nonetheless struggles with a narrative whose turns are often unexpected, yet driven by humanity. There's a clear sense that the author's fitful journey into the past with "K" has opened as many wounds as it has healed, and spawned more questions than it has answered. It's that discomfort and frustration that often reinforces the honesty of her prose--and reinforces Thomas Wolfe's adage yet again. --Jerry McCulley

About the Author:

Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969 and in 1972 she moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After that country's civil war in 1981, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia. Fuller now lives in Wyoming and has two children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador Africa
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1770100016
• ISBN 13: 9781770100015
• Binding: Paperback