a tale of Zimbabwe

Has author Douglas Rogers increased the dangers facing his parents from Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime by writing about them in his compelling and remarkable book, The Last Resort? Given Rogers obvious intelligence, street smarts and first-hand familiarity with their situation, probably not. More likely the fame he has probably given them acts as a protective shield around the brave couple.

On one level, the subject of The Last Resort is Rogers's family. But the author, ordinarily a travel writer, has written one of those fascinating memoirs that tell a broad story that goes beyond what it looks like at first. Want to better understand what's going on in crazy Pres. Robert Mugabe was Zimbabwe, read Roger's book.

In many ways, the Rogers family symbolizes the experience of a large number of white farmers whose families settled long ago in the former Rhodesia. Despite how the repressive regime portrays its policy of appropriating white owned farms as land reform, that is not at all what it is. It's theft pure and simple which is not even benefiting the poor people. It is not at all simply a matter of white versus black. Most of the victims of Mugabe's repressive policies are black Africans who support his political opposition. True the Rogers were born into privilege, but they long ago accepted and perhaps even embraced black African rule.

When Mugabe first began his crackdown on Zimbabwe's white farmers, Rogers called his parents from the UK where he was then living.

"What's going on?" He asked his mother when she picked up the phone.

"Oh it's terrible, terrible!"

"What's happened?" He asked, his heart in his mouth.

"They lost."

"Who lost?"

"Why the cricket team."

It wasn't that Rogers' mother was unaware of what was going on. But she kept her perspective. As it happened, initially the Rogers got a pass from the appropriation policy; they own a resort, not a farm. But that didn't stop gangs of young toughs from riding up to their front door waving weapons in the air. In addition, through entirely extralegal manipulation, at one point Rogers' father finds out that his lost legal title to his land. But still they hang on.

Gradually, the Rogers' resort, having lost its tourist customers, metamorphized with part of it serving as a haven initially for white Zimbabweans who were forced off their land and part of it as a bar which attracted people from the nearest city. In addition, for part of the time some of the land was sublet by a man who ran what amounted to a bordello.

Along with plenty of scenes of high tension, Rogers provides a number of comic scenes in a gripping writing style that deserves a wide readership.

A Horse Story

The human experience is such that some people carve their own paths out of misery. In the case of Susan Richards, author of Saddled: How a Spirited Horse Reined Me in and Set Me Free, her way out of the alcoholism that threatened to destroy her was to love and care for a horse. Only several years after she stopped drinking did she join Alcoholics Anonymous.

Richards' drinking followed a disastrous childhood. A number of people in her family were alcoholics, her mother died when she was young, and soon afterward, her father abandoned her and her brother, leaving them unattended and alone. Only after three terrifying days did her grandmother’s chauffeur come and take the children to her house. Afterwards, Richards was shuffled around from one unloving relative to another.

Reading Saddled, I wondered about Richards’ focus on a horse and her penchant for divining what the horse thinks. I was reminded of the Tom Hank’s film, Castaway. In the film, a plane crash survivor on a small deserted island developed a dependency on “Wilson” a volleyball that also washed ashore, that the Hank’s character anthropomorphized, and on which he painted a face. I suggest that this strange relationship somewhat parallels that of Richards and her horse. In both cases, desperate people reach out to find a way out of their loneliness.

Part of the reason for the success of books like Richards’ (and films like Castaway) is how they plumb the depths of a condition that few of us can completely avoid. This is the secret of Wizard of Oz, in which a wicked witch and her simian minions threaten poor Dorothy to her very core. In Richards’ case, the villains include her mean grandmother, the grandmother’s vicious chauffeur, Richards’ second husband and a two-timing boy friend. Both Dorothy and Richards want to “go home” to a secure place.

There is a big difference between Richards and Dorothy, of course. Richards is an adult who must bear responsibility for her actions as a grown up; Dorothy is a fictional child.

This reviewer was tested by Richards’ claim to divine the thoughts of her horse. “There couldn’t have been any doubt in her mind that whatever her status had been for the past year, here she was a celebrity,” Richardson tells the reader at one point. Really?

Richards’ odd claim notwithstanding, she does a fine job of tracing her metamorphosis from abandoned child to abused alcoholic adult to a largely healed person who has resolved many of the problems that plagued her for decades. In the end she became a certified social worker who gained the self-knowledge that she lacked in her earlier years.

Richards tells her story using finely and thoroughly wrought (though sometimes repetitive) scenes, many of which beautifully describe a horse in action. An earlier Richards book, Chosen by a Horse, was a NY Times best seller and despite some of the book’s flaws, Saddle, too could achieve that success. It has a ready audience among the multitude devotees of animal-themed books. In addition, Saddled will also please readers who just want a well-told story of human redemption.