{"product_id":"on-the-edge-of-the-rift-memories-of-kenya","title":"On the Edge of the Rift: Memories of Kenya","description":"409 pp. Here is a re-creation of an Africa that no longer exists, and a life that, for all its struggles and sorrows, seems idyllic in retrospect. These are the years of Elspeth Huxley's growing-up -- she is twelve when she returns to Thika with her parents after the First World War; sixteen when her family leaves Thika, which is becoming relatively suburbanized, and strikes out for the splendid, still untamed wilderness of Njoro in the Valley of the Rift. Mrs. Huxley's memory of those years, of people, landscapes, incidents, is as fresh and unblurred as her recaptured sense of enchantment. Here is a life lived close to a land that is beautiful beyond belief, and the people one meets in these pages are as varied as the African landscape. There are the unforgettable Tilly, Mrs. Huxley's mother, a woman of rare charm, wit and insouciance; the colorful and rather eccentric crew of friends and neighbors; the Kikuyus with their odd sense of logic....And through it all, there is a very strong sense of the narrator herself, a young girl growing up with a freedom few young people ever have -- a freedom to roam through a magnificent wilderness and be close to what she sees around her. The rift of the title is threefold in meaning: first, the Rift Valley where Elspeth and her family lived; second, the rift between childhood and maturity; and, finally the rift between the Africa in which the author grew up and the present turbulent Africa. An illumination of the past, this is also a vivid preparation for the here and now.--jacket","brand":"William Morrow and Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40419974578246,"sku":"2329728","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1232\/9510\/products\/2329728.jpg?v=1669657454","url":"https:\/\/ym-demo.myshopify.com\/products\/on-the-edge-of-the-rift-memories-of-kenya","provider":"Yesterday's Muse","version":"1.0","type":"link"}