“I will write my way out of this” is a sign Alexandra Fuller tacked above her desk when she was facing some of the loss she recounts in her new memoir, “Travel Light, Move Fast.” The title bears one of her father’s many sayings. Tim Fuller’s life is among the loss that Fuller elegantly, honestly reckons with in the book.
The Kelly, Wyoming, writer says she likes to take the “me” out of memoir. And this book is one such example. It is an homage to her father. Born in the UK, he was dauntless in rejecting his family’s societal blueprint. He traded that for a minimalist existence in the wildlands of central and southern Africa. But there are many other ways the “me” is extricated from this memoir. Fuller never lets the reader breathe too easy, even when times are good, she is constantly contextualizing, reminding us of the power dynamics, familial, societal, historical that sit quietly between sentences. Universal themes of love, loss, grief and how they reshape identity also keep the reader on her toes.
Fuller discussed how her father’s trajectory got him closer to his true self, and how she’s writing to find hers.
