Book review: a white boy in Africa gets lessons in life and love
Peter Wood’s memoir of growing up not just white but also gay in Rhodesia is a wild ride through turbulent times in a setting of great beauty
by Peter Wood
CreateSpace
3.5/5 stars
In a memoir, you expect the author to be candid and, more importantly, entertaining. Peter Wood delivers on both fronts with Mud Between Your Toes: A Rhodesian Farm, a wild ride through the African bush told through the eyes of an angst-ridden boy growing up white – and gay – on a farm in war-torn Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in the turbulent 1960s and ’70s when the country, increasingly isolated by travel bans and sanctions, was losing its colonial grip.
Nothing has been toned down here as Wood, living under the privileged roof of white-ruled Rhodesia, finds his feet in the unforgiving African bush with an equally unforgiving father whose love he desperately seeks.