Rules of the Wild: A Novel of Africa [Paperback]

Francesca Marciano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 1999

A mesmerizing novel of love and nostalgia set in the vast spaces of contemporary East Africa.

Romantic, often resonantly ironic, moving and wise, Rules of the Wild transports us to a landscape of unsurpassed beauty even as it gives us a sharp-eyed portrait of a closely knit tribe of cultural outsiders: the expatriates living in Kenya today. Challenged by race, by class, and by a longing for home, here are "safari boys" and samaritans, reporters bent on their own fame, travelers who care deeply about elephants but not at all about the people of Africa. They all know each other. They meet at dinner parties, they sleep with each other, they argue about politics and the best way to negotiate their existence in a place where they don't really belong.

At the center is Esmé, a beautiful young woman of dazzling ironies and introspections, who tells us her story in a voice both passionate and self-deprecating. Against a paradoxical backdrop of limitless physical freedom and escalating civil unrest, Esmé struggles to make sense of her own place in Africa and of her feelings for the two men there whom she loves--Adam, a second-generation Kenyan who is the first to show her the wonders of her adopted land, and Hunter, a British journalist sickened by its horrors.        

Rules of the Wild evokes the worlds of Isak Dinesen, Beryl Markham, and Ernest Hemingway. It explores unforgettably our infinite desire for a perfect elsewhere, for love and a place to call home. It is an astonishing literary debut.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Things have certainly changed in Kenya since the 1930s, when Baroness Karen Blixen (a.k.a. Isak Dinesen, author of Out of Africa) had a farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills. In Francesca Marciano's Rules of the Wild, the Blixen spread has become an affluent white suburb of Nairobi, home to the tony "Karen" Shopping Mall and populated by a new breed of narcissistic young expatriates and second-generation white Africans. Esme, the beautiful twentysomething Italian narrator, lands in Kenya by happenstance, seeking to escape a painful past and the recent death of her beloved father. Captivated by the sheer physical beauty of the landscape and the raw honesty of her new "tribe," Esme is further ensnared by her love for two dynamic men--one a gentle 1990s version the Great White Hunter, the other an angry journalist obsessed by the carnage of Somalia and Rwanda. In her eminently readable novel, Marciano creates a hip, knowing set of characters who are ironically aware that their easy lifestyle, supported by trust funds and cheap labor, contrasts darkly with the poverty and decay of east Africa. Esme, an intense and thoughtful observer of the scene, struggles not only with the desire to test herself, "to love without illusion, to love without feeling safe", but with what it means to be white in Africa, living in bizarre isolation from the native culture, drawing spiritual sustenance from the land but protected from the continent's turmoil. Finally, the passion she develops for Kenya roots her and gives her purpose, a home. As one of her friends observes, "I'll tell you what it is about this place.... It sentences you to freedom ... you are constantly reminded of what it means to be free and to be alive. And then it becomes difficult to settle for anything less than this." --Marianne Painter --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The voice of Italian-born narrator Esme, which seduces the reader into the world of this intelligent first novel, is sad, tense, darkly foreboding, secretly desperate. From the beginning, we know that this will be a story of missed opportunities, failed love affairs, unfulfilled longings. Juxtaposed with the tale of a woman trying to find herself is a trenchant and striking picture of contemporary Africa. Esme flees Italy for Kenya after the death of her charismatic father, a poet, and is grateful to find security in an affair with idealistic safari operator Adam. Africa initially seems a paradise to Esme. She is welcomed into the inbred white community of Nairobi, where alcohol and drugs are routine pleasures, everyone has slept with everyone else and the colonial attitude toward blacks has not changed. When she meets a burning social conscience, restless Esme recognizes a kindred spirit, and their passionate affair threatens to destroy the only haven she has known. Hunter has covered the carnage in Somalia and Rwanda, and his insistence that Esme acknowledge the "real" Africa?the poverty in which most Africans live, the despoliation of the environment?unsettles her already fragile emotional balance. In the end, she will be caught between two worlds, two lovers and two visions of the future. Marciano's passion for the spectacular landscape of Africa is almost palpable. Her character analysis is often profound as she delicately conveys the moral complexities of social and personal issues. Her Africa is a paradox in every sense: beautiful and tragic, luxuriant and rotting, paradise and hell, Esme's nemesis and her salvation. This resonantly ironic, beautifully observed novel announces an impressive new talent. 50,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour; rights sold in Germany, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, France, Holland and Brazil; simultaneous Random House audio.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st edition (September 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375703438
• ISBN-13: 978-0375703430
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #479,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding - but not for everyone, August 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rules of the Wild: A Novel of Africa (Paperback)

I read this book in one sitting and promptly passed it around my circle of friends. Here's my insights on who will like it:

The fact that it is a romance means it will appeal (quite strongly) to women, and not very much to men. All my female friends adored it; none of my male friends managed to finish it.

It is not an African current affairs book and should not be read for any socio-political message - except what you might interpret from the attitudes of the characters. Mainly, it is a personal story, nothing else.

This book appeals to those who have lived as an expat and to those who dream of adventure in far off lands. Written by an Italian, it is an example of the modern European mentality toward living abroad - which is very different from the American psyche. The foreignness of the author's mentality causes it to lose some appeal to the American audience. My European friends who have lived in Africa all identified completely with this book. The fact that it is currently a top ten bestseller in South Africa also points to its readership.

If you liked this novel, there's a newer book called The Africa House by Christina Lamb (available through Amazon UK) that appeals to a similar audience.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars True to Life, May 8, 2005

By 

African out of water (Kansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rules of the Wild: A Novel of Africa (Paperback)

As an expatriate American who was born and raised in Kenya and attended the British boarding schools in Kenya, I can honestly say that I saw the people I grew up in this book. I first read it in 1998, when it came out; I was in the States for the first time and homesick for Kenya. When I read this book, it was as though I was home again. Esme's descriptions of Kenya evoke memories of home; once you fall in love with Africa, nothing else will ever seem quite good enough.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great read, April 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rules of the Wild: A Novel of Africa (Paperback)

I just read some of the other reviews written about this novel and I am saddened to see people take things so personally. Francesca Marciano penned a superb novel about expats in Kenya. Anyone who paid attention to the jacket of the book would have known that. For people to have bought this book and expected anything else, is sad. Yes the characters are narcissistic and yes they are shallow, but that was entirely the point. As an African, I have had many run ins with such people and anyone who has (and some who haven't), know that Ms. Marciano's version of expatriates in Africa, is incredibly accurate. Her handle of the English language is fabulous and her characters are interesting and intentionally lacking in substance. She vividly portrays the landscape and left me with a longing that I haven't felt in quite some time. I was transported to Kenya and felt the beauty of the land in the same way that the characters did. I reccommend this novel to anyone who knows how not to take life to seriously and how to see the flaws in others for what they are.