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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2004, 256 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2005, 288 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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From the book jacket: Foreign correspondent Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, arrived in
Zimbabwe in 1997. After witnessing firsthand the devastating consequences of
AIDS on the population, especially the children, the couple started
volunteering at an orphanage that was desperately underfunded and
short-staffed. One afternoon, a critically ill infant was brought to the
orphanage. After a near-death hospital
stay the ailing child was entrusted to
the care of Tucker and Vita. Within weeks Chipo, the girl-child whose name
means gift, would come to mean everything to them.
Still an active correspondent, Tucker crisscrossed the continent, filing
stories about the uprisings in the Congo, the civil war in Sierra Leone, and
the post-genocidal conflict in Rwanda. At home in Harare, Vita was nursing Chipo back to
health. Soon she and Tucker decided to alter their lives forever—they
would adopt Chipo. That decision challenged an unspoken social norm—that
foreigners should never adopt Zimbabwean children.
As if their situation wasn’t tenuous enough, Zimbabwe President Robert
Mugabe was stirring up national fervor against foreigners - for Tucker, the only full-time
American correspondent in Zimbabwe, the declaration was a direct threat to
his life and his wife's safety, and an ultimatum to their decision to
adopt the child who had already become their only daughter.
Comment: I don't have the words to do this
book justice but fortunately for you and me, others have:
'This is a gorgeous mix of family memoir and reportage that traverses the
big issues of politics, racism and war.' -- Publishers Weekly
'All this plus the impassioned story of a family facing recalcitrant
bureaucracy and political pressure fill this brief book to bursting, but
there are certainly no dull passages. Wholeheartedly recommended.' --
Library Journal.
It seems that many of you already agree that this is an exceptional book
- although I will not be officially announcing the winners of the 2004
BookBrowse Awards (which 950 of you voted for) for a couple more weeks, I
can tell you that 'Love In The Driest Season' won your vote as the
most popular debut of 2004!
Lastly, a brief update from the Tucker family. Neely tells me Vita is
still doing development work in East Africa, he works for the Style
section of the Washington Post, and Chipo is 'a high-spirited first grader
who is perfectly happy, healthy and doing great in school!'
This review
first ran in the April 6, 2005
issue of BookBrowse Recommends.
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An utterly absorbing narrative that chronicles Tim Butcher’s forty-four-day journey along the Congo River, Blood River is an unforgettable story of exploration and survival.
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