This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.
Peter Wood was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Southern Africa, in 1962. After leaving high school to join the army for a year, he wound up in London, where he began a successful career in photography. This eventually took him to Hong Kong—which he has called home for the past two decades.
Wood’s unique upbringing, as well as his identification as a gay white African, ultimately inspired him to write his memoir, Mud Between Your Toes: A Rhodesian Farm.
Reviewed by Viga Boland for Readers' Favorite
From its eye-catching cover to the multitude of photos to the fascinating content, Mud Between Your Toes by Peter Wood is worth the time it takes to read. What a marvellous writer! In his memoir, Mud Between Your Toes, Peter Wood gives us a wonderful insight into what it was like to be a white person born in Rhodesia before the Rhodesian Bush Wars divided the country. He opens his memoir by taking us back to visit what was once his beautiful childhood farm, M'sitwe, a property once elegant, complete with swimming pool, and now fallen into massive disrepair. The heartbreaking sight is almost too much for his aged mother who, when still young, was a pillar of strength as she faced down the angry mob that came to take over her farm and threatened her with rape and murder, which we read of in the final chapter.
In between those chapters, we watch young Peter growing, playing, sharing a bath in a wooden tub with his black friend Alec. But it is Alec who leads the hostile mob to oust his family from the farm at the end. The intervening years and political upheaval have changed everything and turned childhood friends into bitter enemies. Over the years, Peter attends a prestigious upper class school, joins the military, discovers he is gay, travels to the Mediterranean, and shares it all with his readers with marvellous humour, touching sensitivity, and much love for his family and homeland. The content of Mud Between Your Toes draws from Peter's diaries, which he describes in his acknowledgements as "rambling and oft-incoherent." But there is nothing incoherent about Mud Between Your Toes: Peter Wood is a brilliant writer, but he also spares no one's sensitivities when it comes to the language used: it is often raw, even rough, but always honest.
You might like to check Peter Wood out on Facebook at this link: www.facebook.com/MudBetweenYourToes where he has posted video interviews. It's most enjoyable to hear the voice and see the face of the man behind Mud Between Your Toes. He is as colourful as his book. Highly recommended reading if you like learning about different cultures and expanding your knowledge of the world around us and its history.
