Introduction

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 Review

Twenty-something Esme, a beautiful Italian-American woman, searches for a sense of place and a sense of self amidst the serene beauty and searing horrors of Africa. Looking for the Kenya of Karen Blixen (a.k.a. Isak Dinesen, author of Out of Africa), Esme can't escape the present: dinner parties and safaris are all tinged--damaged, as it were--with news of war-torn Somalia and Rwanda. Like Blixen, Esme is devoted to one man, in love with another. The resulting tale, which encompasses about 12 months in the life of the narrator, is both personal and political.

The daughter of a poet, Esme chooses her words carefully and is observant of all around her. Her knowledge of Italian and the rhythms of that language give the prose an added lyricism and an often-dreamlike quality that is enhanced by Penelope Ann Miller's reading. (Running time: 3 hours, 2 cassettes) --Anne Lockwood

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