Child of Happy Valley

Rating:
Summary: Riveting
Review: I once met Juanita Carberry, a quiet person, and this book surprised me. She and her co-writer, Nicola Tyrer, have, with beautiful writing, elevated a very good story to a near classic.

Juanita Carberry knew personally characters from "Out of Africa", "The Flame Trees of Thika", "West with the Night" and "White Mischief". She presents them in this retelling from an entirely different perspective.

There is also a disturbing underlying theme of child abuse. Two mysteries are related, one the story of a murder, the other an unusual love affair. The history of colonial life in Kenya, the drama of an excessive lifestyle in a wildly exotic country, and the pathos of a little girl acting as a companion to her debauched stepmother make riveting reading.

Rating:
Summary: Child of Africa, no man's daughter...
Review: This is a beautifully-told memoir of growing up in Kenya during the years of the "White Mischief" colony of drunkards and libertines. Juanita Carberry, by some amazing piece of good fortune, retained her dignity and individuality, watching with a jaundiced eye as her nasty father and promiscuous stepmother cavorted and stumbled around in the jungle like displaced, pampered poodles, alterntately abusing and abandoning her.

The true heroine here is Africa itself, its nurturing native population (Ms. Carberry's spiritual friends and family) and its natural beauty, from amusing and engaging wildlife to exotic flora and breathtaking views. The great gems of the book are the numerous anecdotes about her startling encounters with animals and insects (my favorite: her predilection for termites - as opposed to locusts).

We don't get the real gossipy "scoop" about the murder of the Earl of Errol until near the end of the book (she was the ultimate 'witness.' The murderer actually confessed to her. However, she was never called upon at trial because the defense thought a child's testimony unreliable).

In the end, she defied her inhumanly cruel parents and governess by becoming a world-class swimmer and Naval officer, and when her father implied that she wasn't even his daughter she stood up for her "true" lineage: she was a self-made woman, "Me!" she exclaims at the end, owned by no one but herself.