Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

People edit see section history

• Nicola Fuller: The author's flamboyant mother.
• Vanessa: Add a description of this character.
• Olivia
• Adrian
• Mr. Zulu
• Mr. Vaas
• Tim
• Glug
• Kevin
• Violet
• Rena
• Mr. Faraji
• Suzy
• Bobo
• John Parodi
• Macdonald
• Allan
• Malcolm
• Emmanuel
• Mrs. Hoster
• Stephen
• Ian Smith
• Garrard
• Betty Webster
• Donovan
• Robandi
• Mum
• Babs
• Giovanni
• Charlie
• Elsa

Quotes edit see section history

• “(My dad) doesn't remember (his grandfather) Admiral Sir Cyril at all and my great-grandfather therefore remains insouciantly handsome in a photograph I found for sale at a retailer of "Fine Historic and Autographed Documents" in Missouri of all unlikely places. (This reader/writer lives in Missouri, of all places ^__^)”

  Alexandra

• “"Surely until all of us own and honor one another's dead, until we have admitted to our murders and forgiven one another and ourselves for what we have done, there can be no truce, no dignity and no place."”

  Alexandra

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• the pathos and the gift of life is that we cannot know which will be our defining heartbreak, or our most victorious joy.

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• she forgave the world and her mind returned. She gave herself amnesty and her soul had a home again. The forgiveness took years and it took this farm and it took the Tree of Forgetfulness. It took all of that, but above all it took the one thing grief could never steal from my mother: her courage.

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• when a government talks about “fighting for Freedom” almost every Freedom you can imagine disappears for ordinary people and expands limitlessly for a handful of people in power.

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• Surely until all of us own and honor one another’s dead, until we have admitted to our murders and forgiven one another and ourselves for what we have done, there can be no truce, no dignity and no peace.

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• War is Africa’s perpetual ripe fruit. There is so much injustice to resolve, such desire for revenge in the blood of the people, such crippling corruption of power, such unseemly scramble for the natural resources. The wind of power shifts and there go the fruit again, tumbling toward the ground, each war more inventively terrible than the last.

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• No one starts a war warning that those involved will lose their innocence—that children will definitely die and be forever lost as a result of the conflict; that the war will not end for generations and generations, even after cease-fires have been declared and peace treaties have been signed. No one starts a war that way, but they should. It would at least be fair warning and an honest admission: even a good war—if there is such a thing—will kill anyone old enough to die.

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• But most of us also don’t pay so dearly for our prejudices, our passions, our mistakes. Lots of places, you can harbor the most ridiculous, the most ruining, the most intolerant beliefs and be hurt by nothing more than your own thoughts.

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• What my mother won’t say—lost in all her talk of chemicals and pills—is that she knows not only the route grief takes through blood but also the route it takes through the heart’s cracks. What she won’t tell me is that recovering from the madness of grief wasn’t just a matter of prescriptions, but of willpower.

  Highlighted by 42 Kindle customers

• “What-ifs are the worst kind of postmortem,” she says. “And I hate postmortems. Much better to face the truth, pull up your socks and get on with whatever comes next.”

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• The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.   —KATHERINE MANSFIELD

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Kenya
• Rhodesia
• Central Africa
• England
• Eldoret
• Zambia
• Mozambique
• Britain
• London
• Umtali
• Burma Valley
• Scotland
• Skye
• Lusaka
• Mombasa
• Nairobi
• Salisbury
• South Africa
• Uganda
• Zimbabwe
• Himalayas
• East Africa
• Happy Valley
• Wellington
• India
• Malawi
• Afrikaans
• China
• Muncie
• Zambezi River
• Southampton
• Awful Book

First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Alexandra Fuller (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 920

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › History › Africa › Zimbabwe
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Memoirs