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  • Published: 15 March 2016
  • ISBN: 9781784700591
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $29.99

Leaving Before the Rains Come




The sequel to the international bestseller Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight.

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

  • Published: 15 March 2016
  • ISBN: 9781784700591
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Alexandra Fuller

Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972, she moved with her family to a farm in southern Africa. She lived in Africa until her mid-twenties. In 1994, she moved to Wyoming. She has three children.

Praise for Leaving Before the Rains Come

[An] honest, powerful and moving memoir

Kate Figes, Mail on Sunday

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

[An] urgent, eloquently fearless book

Guardian

A poetic and powerful account of a troubled marriage, sensitive, frank and full of insight into the human condition

Daily Express

[A] bold, brave memoir of [Fuller’s] emancipation from the past

The Times

[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

[Fuller] is so compassionate, funny and un-bitter, and her straight-shooting yet graceful prose is the real thing

The Spectator

Remarkable, beautifully written and fantastically entertaining… a compulsive read

Observer

This fascinating memoir is by turns hilarious and utterly heartbreaking in charting 20 years of marriage… Searingly and disconcertingly honest

Dermot Bolger, Sunday Business Post

Leaving Before the Rains Come is a drama of expatriation, exploring in searching terms…an imagined return of the native. It carries memoir beyond candour towards a place in literature

Lyndall Gordon, Literary Review

[A] readable, often hilarious, but always frank account

Good Book Guide

Fuller writes about making mistakes, living with grief and depression, coping with loss, with incredible insight and honesty. We raced through this book

A Little Bird (Blog)

A powerful, emotionally honest account of a relationship falling apart.

Charlotte Heathcote, Daily Express

A riveting account of the disintegration of a marriage… Revelatory without ascribing blame. Fuller writes without bitterness or partiality, illuminating the universal by a powerful illustration of the particular.

Jenni Russell, The Sunday Times