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It was fun to read,felt like an african movie of the forties with the nineties mentality.All the characters are described as being so gorgeous looking that makes you want to move to Nairobi.But I didn't like the stereotype of women being either breeders or mermaids.Still Francesca Martiano in her first novel shows a sofisticated sense of humor that makes me look forward for her next novel.

Terrific. A real page-turner. I couldn't put it down. A must for anyone who has ever felt powerful conflicting passions: between two lovers, between two places. This is the best book about whites in Africa since Rian Malan's My Traitor's Heart. Way better than anything that plodding poser, Hemingway, ever wrote about the place. Marciano skilfully weaves everything from the horrifying politics of the Rwandan genocide to the extraordinary Kenyan landscape and wildlife into her story. But her greatest triumph is her account of the wracking dilemmas someone experiences when he or she is in love with more than one person.

I met Francesca Marciano tonight at a reading in Germany. She read some paragraphes of her book presenting it to a small audience of students and other interessted people. She (her personality) really made me curious and her style of writing (or reading?) was quite inspiring. It seems to be a very personal and emotional book for a generation of identity-searching and freedom-loving mid-thirties...

Esme was eight years old when her mother died. Esme left Manhattan to live with her father, Ferdinando, an Italian poet, who resided for the most part in Naples. Esme is an adult when her father died. Grieving his death, the bored Esme flees the continent to recover on a Kenyan safari. However, life in East Africa is nothing like Esme expected. Instead of the wild that she expected, she becomes part of the white expatriate population living in Nairobi. This group of individuals suffering from ennui openly use cocaine and nightly swap sex partners. Esme initially moves in with Adam, but quickly switches to cynical English reporter Hunter Reed. RULES OF THE WILD appears to be an attempt to turn Dinesen and Hemingway upside down and over the author's knees for a well deserved spanking. The disillusioned but opulent white community lingering in Africa is brilliantly described by Francesca Marciano. However, the novel fails to turn satirical, leaving a maudlin taste as readers realize that the females are banal losers while the males are self-indulging mental masturbaters. Though this inability to find something positive to say about these exiles makes the novel quite melancholy, the audience should note that Ms. Marciano has written a witty, interesting book that brings to life another aspect of African society.Harriet Klausner

All of the elements of a good novel are here, but the writer seems to be trying too hard to make it literary and high-minded. The characters never quite break through from cliches and become real. I never felt much from any of them. On the other hand, there are some wonderful descriptions of Africa here.