Reviews

House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe by Christina Lamb

bahoulie's review

2.0

really didn't enjoy this. was very hard reading the white man's reminiscences of being an awful racist pig in his early years.

mandyist's review against another edition

5.0

This is one of the best books I have ever read.  It is riveting and nearly impossible to put down.  I would highly recommend it.

House of Stone is written by Christina Lamb, an English journalist.  In the opening passages I wasn't too sure if I trusted this author yet as I thought she was exaggerating (this is the scene where she describes a city's main market as reduced to rubble).  I then turned the page to see a photograph depicting the rubble and it was there that my hesitation and disbelief dissolved.

The author takes the life story of two very different Zimbabweans and she chronicles this against the backdrop of the major political events of the past 45 years. She also interweaves the history of Zimbabwe dating back over a hundred years, to when the country was first colonised.  The protagonists are a white educated male born into a wealthy farming family and a poor black female with only a primary education who hailed from an underprivileged rural background.

The book is incredibly informative and yet it is never laborious or dry.  This is a book that took me through a range of emotions from shock and horror to disbelief and sadness.  I thought I had very strong beliefs about Zimbabwe before I read this book.  I thought I had a very politically left position on matters there and I was convinced Mugabe was an evil man and that gross human rights violations were taking place.  The truth is that I had no idea and that my mind could not have even conceived how bad things really are there.  The point is not to discuss my politics but that knowledge is power and I would urge everyone to read this book so that they too can get an idea of what is going on in Zimbabwe and once armed with the truth, they can act accordingly.

k_lee_reads_it's review

2.0

Full of facts, this book is about an interesting subject, but it is a grinding read. I plowed through to the end and I learned that Zimbabwe is beautiful and a political and economic disaster. I'm glad I don't live there.

sariggs's review

3.0

Very dry until about the halfway point, probably because it’s a third party non-fiction book, and the author is careful not to add anything extra. The second half goes much more quickly, probably because it’s talking about more recent events and the protagonists remember it all with more emotion.
In any case, I learned a lot. It’s the first book of its kind that I’ve read with a non-white viewpoint.

maria_ruth_jones's review

4.0

Happy to have stumbled upon this book in a used book store. Incredible journalistic feat - sneaking into Zim in the middle of a chaotic war - and an insightful personalized look into the conflict. Now seeking out other books by Christina Lamb.

lizardreads's review

1.0

Parts of this book had been assigned in a high school history class, and I hung onto it thinking someday I would get to the rest of it. Having just finished it 12 years later, it doesn't really seem worth the wait.

This is a deeply flawed book. Lamb alternates between the perspectives of a white (colonizer) farmer and their Black Zimbabwean nanny. The alternating chapters detailing their very different upbringings are interspersed with a mostly uncited telling of modern Zimbabwean politics. Lamb glosses over a lot of just horrific racism perpetuated by white residents, and seemed to try to contrast it as equally bad to the anti-white rhetoric and actions under Mugabe, which just didn't feel right. Although it tries to tell "two sides of a story," I think it is still very Eurocentric. The book abruptly ends without ever articulating a clear perspective on Zimbabwe's colonial/post-colonial history - which - I don't think Lamb would necessarily be the right author to take on, it just underscores how inadequate this book is at conveying the context of the story.