Product Description

This is a story about a paradise lost. . . . About an African dream that began with a murder . . .

In 1978, in the final, bloodiest phase of the Rhodesian civil war, eleven-year-old Lauren St John moves with her family to Rainbow's End, a wild, beautiful farm and game reserve set on the banks of a slowflowing river. The house has been the scene of a horrific attack by guerrillas, and when Lauren's family settles there, a chain of events is set in motion that will change her life irrevocably.

Rainbow's End captures the overwhelming beauty and extraordinary danger of life in the African bush. Lauren's childhood reads like a girl's own adventure story. At the height of the war, Lauren rides through the wilderness on her horse, Morning Star, encountering lions, crocodiles, snakes, vicious ostriches, and mad cows. Many of the animals are pets, including Miss Piggy and Bacon and an elegant giraffe named Jenny. The constant threat of ruthless guerrillas prowling the land underscores everything, making each day more dangerous, vivid, and prized than the last.

After Independence, Lauren comes to the bitter realization that she'd been on the wrong side of the civil war. While she and her family believed that they were fighting for democracy over Communism, others saw the war as black against white. And when Robert Mugabe comes into power, he oversees the torture and persecution of thousands of members of an opposing tribe and goes on to become one of Africa's legendary dictators. The ending of this beautiful memoir is a fist to the stomach as Lauren realizes that she can be British or American, but she cannot be African. She can love it -- be willing to die for it -- but she cannot claim Africa because she is white.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #315635 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743286800
• Condition: USED - Like New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

From Publishers Weekly
Set against the backdrop of the Rhodesian civil war, St. John's memoir (after 2003's Hardcore Troubadour) of growing up on a farm and game preserve in the 1970s deftly conjures up the smells and sounds of the African bush and the era's climate of unashamed racism and feverish patriotism. In April 1975, after a sojourn in South Africa, St. John and her family returned to Rhodesia: her South African-–born father, Errol, longed to defend his adopted homeland from the nationalist threat. When not away "fighting black terrorists," he managed a farm called Rainbow's End, where four previous tenants, including the author's classmate, were murdered by guerrillas. In exuberant prose, St. John, who was born in 1966, conveys a 12-year-old's wonder of roaming her own private game park, but the child's voice darkens when she notices the "maroon punctuation mark of dried blood" on her bedroom wall. Scenes evoking the land's great beauty dissolve into unsettling images of slaughter, and St. John faces her family's politics as she matures. Though St. John's memoir is not as tight or pitch-perfect as Alexandra Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, she bears witness to a remarkable story. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The author of several biographies, St. John now turns her eye toward her own African childhood. The daughter of a white soldier and his spirited wife, Lauren was excited when her family left South Africa for Rhodesia in the mid-1970s. Her father longed to fight again as he had in his youth, and Lauren found herself as caught up in it as he was. When several members of a nearby family, including a boy in Lauren's class, are murdered by insurgents, Lauren and her family move into their farm home, Rainbow's End. The farm is a child's paradise: a giraffe Lauren christens Jenny roams the land, and Lauren rides her stubborn horse, Charm, around the vast grounds. But peril is everywhere, as deadly snakes slither around and sometimes inside the house, and terrorists prowl in the nighttime. When the war comes to an end and Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe, Lauren finds herself an outsider in her country. Lush descriptions of both the terrain and the war distinguish St. John's moving memoir. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Rainbow's End is a lyrical, haunting story of family, love, and loss in a land as dangerous as it is beautiful."-- Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle

"Striding tall through Lauren St John's gorgeously written memoir is her father, and chapter after chapter their relationship is untangled and celebrated. Joy and a hunger for life infuse this book -- whether St John is writing about the harrowing years of Rhodesia's civil war, her childhood adventures in the bush, or the breaking apart of her family. Rainbow's End is a most generous and wise book."-- Lisa Fugard, author of Skinner's Drift

Customer Reviews

Best memoir of African childhood I have ever read
I love tales of African childhoods and there seem to have been a lot of these books lately. This is the best one I've ever read. All of these books raphsodize about the beauty of Africa but this is the first book that made me see it too. This book made me laugh and cry -- and compelled me to write my first Amazon review. I read two or three books a week and I highly recommend this book.

Rainbow's End
This book is very good. I was a teenager in America when this was happening in Rhodesia. I remember it changing names and I remember there being some type of war, but I don't remember much else. I was shocked at some of the things that happened, but I really enjoyed the book. It should be required reading for anyone studying histories. I have passed this book on to some one who was born in that country and was just a few years older than the author and she has other memories, but she also said it was good. I definately recommend this book for anyone who likes books about history. It was very personable. The author made you really visualize the scenes as she described them.

Beautiful Memoir
This book is a beautifully written memoir of childhood that,importantly for me, does a fantastic job of evoking the time and place, scents and sounds of growing up on a farm in the bush. Perhaps more meaningful to me since I've traveled in southern Africa, but its a wonderful story for anyone not just those interested in that period and that place.