On Leopard Rock

May 21, 2018
Writing in the direct, lean style of his fiction, Smith revisits the significant milestones of his writing life, during which he wrote nearly 40 novels that sold more than 130 million copies worldwide. The Zambian author begins with his coming of age, spent with his father, an engineer and big game hunter, in 1940s Northern Rhodesia. Through his father, he acquired the sportsman’s code that hunting was not “done for joy. Hunting was a way of life.” He worked on his father’s cattle farm and at various jobs until he attended Rhodes University in South Africa, graduating in 1954, then worked as an accountant. In 1964 he published his first novel, When the Lion Feeds, set in 1870 South Africa and involving a hunting accident between twin brothers. That was made into a Hollywood movie, as were many of his subsequent novels, such as The Dark of the Sun (1965), about mercenaries during the 1960s Congo crisis, and Shout at the Devil, about ivory poachers in 1915 Zanzibar (he describes a scripted fight on the set between actors Roger Moore and Lee Marvin that nearly turned real). Smith writes most prominently about his father, who died in 1985 from lung cancer and who carried a copy of When the Lion Feeds in his car to show off to his friends. Honest and intimate, Smith’s memoir tells of an extraordinary life of writing.

April 1, 2018
The adventurous autobiography of one of the world's most prolific and popular novelists.South African novelist Smith (The Tiger's Prey, 2017, etc.) has sold more than 120 million copies of his books, primarily adventure novels charged with family drama. Some of his work has been shadowed by accusations of racism and misogyny, charges the author seems to simultaneously deny and own up to in this otherwise breezy autobiography. In this chronicle of his life's exploits, he narrates with the swagger of his heroes Hemingway and H. Rider Haggard. The book is replete with tales of hunting, flying, fishing, and near-death experiences like drinking with Lee Marvin, a star of the 1976 adaptation of Shout at the Devil (1968). The narrative is structured thematically with chapters like "This Hero's Life," "The High-Flying Life," and so on, interlaced with anecdotes about his research and writing process. Smith's depictions of the realities of apartheid-era Africa can be compelling, but his determined machismo sometimes sours the overall account. "I think one of the worst inventions of our century is political correctness," writes the author. "It has forced a generation of men to keep their masculinity under wraps, made them too timid to admit their true views about the world." Worse is his cantankerous scorn of the young: "We are spoiling whole generations of people now. You don't have to work, you can claim benefits; if you want to write obscenities on the walls and go on the soccer field and swear your head off, you're a hero." Fans will appreciate the origins and inspirations of his popular characters, and Smith retains a mischievous sense of humor, but it's a surprisingly unexciting memoir sporadically laced with notions best left behind.A good read for his fans; a relic from another age for the rest of us.

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April 15, 2018
It took 55 years of writing fiction, but Smith (The Tiger's Prey, 2017) finally wrote the book that documents the inspiration for his 40 novels. In an autobiography reminiscent of his famous characters' white-knuckled adventures all over Africa, South African Smith serves as the reader's personal travel guide through apprenticing with his father, a big game hunter, cattleman, and mining engineer, to his extensive travels researching the stories that have sold more than 120-million copies worldwide in 25 languages. His fans (more than 2.2 million on Facebook, at last count) will bask in the backstory of Smith's tireless pursuit of the ultimate life, one filled with exhilaration, danger, and heartbreak. They'll witness his fight against governments out to ban his books, an airplane crash that almost killed him, and his saying goodbye to his parents for the last time. Despite his overwhelming success as a popular fiction writer, Smith confronts what he sees as a lack of literary acknowledgement of his work and dedicates a chapter to all who want to make a living as a writer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)