Love in the Driest Season

Starred review from November 24, 2003
As a foreign correspondent, Tucker had worked in conflict zones on two continents and seen death in all its gruesome forms. "The steady stream of violence had worn away my natural sense of compassion to the point where I could cover almost any horror but felt very little about anything at all." Then, in 1997, Neely, a white Mississippian, and his African-American wife, Vita, were posted to Zimbabwe, where the AIDS crisis was feeding an unprecedented wave of sick and abandoned children. "The scale of death, and the depths of misery it entailed, defied the imagination even for someone like me...." Neely and Vita volunteered at an overwhelmed orphanage in the Zimbabwean capital, where diarrhea and pneumonia were killing babies at an alarming rate. Nobody dared whisper the word AIDS, though its specter hung over every crib. Here, Neely and Vita met Chipo, a desperately sick baby girl who had been abandoned under a tree. With temporary permission to take her home, Neely and Vita threw all available resources toward saving her life: round-the-clock feedings, good doctors, medicine and a clean, warm environment. She thrived. Neely and Vita decided to adopt Chipo, only to discover a slew of cultural taboos against adoption by foreigners—a white foreigner in particular. While Chipo grew healthy and fat under their care, the Tuckers negotiated a nightmarish bureaucracy that threatened to tear Chipo away from them; meanwhile, Zimbabwe was entering a period of civil unrest that targeted Americans and journalists. This is a gorgeous mix of family memoir and reportage that traverses the big issues of politics, racism and war. Agent, Wendy Weil. (On sale Feb. 17)

Forecast:
Crown will support Tucker's book with a regional NPR campaign, six-city author tour and print advertising. Tucker's current position (he's a staff writer for the
Washington Post) should help him garner further attention.

October 15, 2003
While in 1990s Zimbabwe, a white Washington Post journalist struggles to adopt an orphan with his African American wife.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2004
Adult/High School-This is the riveting account of how two Mississippians, newspaper reporter Tucker, who is white, and his African-American wife, Vita, adopted a baby. Shortly after their marriage, he was posted to Harare, Zimbabwe, where thousands of children have been orphaned by AIDS and extended families are overburdened with their care. One day, a newborn was rescued from abandonment in the bush and brought into the orphanage where the Tuckers were volunteering. Chipo was tiny and close to death, but she latched onto Neely's finger, and he fell in love with her. The couple were told that it's practically impossible for foreigners to adopt a Zimbabwean baby, but they decided to try. Neely traveled around Africa, reporting on uprisings, massacres, and genocides. Intermittently, he returned to Harare to deal with the rigid, arrogant social-welfare bureaucracy and the horrible sadness of the children dying in the understaffed orphanage. Through patience, political savvy, and the help of sympathetic social workers, he was able to get the necessary papers to adopt the child. The story offers insights into interracial marriage, African politics, and daily life in a Third World country. Teens are sure to be fascinated by the Tuckers' experience.-Penny Stevens, Andover College, Portland, ME

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2003
" Washington Post "writer Tucker has written an affecting, powerful memoir of his struggles to adopt a baby girl in Zimbabwe, where the adoption laws are extremely strict. Tucker, a white man from Mississippi, and his wife Vita, an African American woman from Detroit, settle in Zimbabwe in 1997 and decide that they want to adopt a child. Tucker knows he's found the one when he holds Chipo, an infant abandoned in a field shortly after her birth. Chipo managed to survive two trips to the hospital and life in the understaffed orphanage, but she's in sorry shape when Tucker sees her. The couple is allowed to take her home, and through their doting care, she finally begins to rally and eventually thrive. But Tucker and Vita still face an uphill battle to adopt the child they love more than anything. Red tape, heartless bureaucrats, lost folders, and endless obstacles stand in their way. Tucker maintains a sense of immediacy throughout the book; the reader feels his frustration as he tries to track down various caseworkers, and his nervous energy as he and Vita receive the results of Chipo's HIV test. Utterly heartfelt and truly inspiring.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)

Starred review from January 1, 2004
While a foreign correspondent for the Detroit Free Press in the late 1990s, Tucker and his wife, Vita, volunteered at an underfunded, overburdened orphanage, populated by desperately ill babies, most abandoned at birth, in the capital of Zimbabwe. On a fostering arrangement, they took one infant home for a weekend-and bonded with her thoroughly. This enthralling memoir recounts the Tuckers' struggle to adopt baby Chipo. In AIDS-ravaged, politically tense Zimbabwe, adoption by foreigners, especially Americans, is all but nonexistent. Additionally, during the Tuckers' sojourn, foreign journalists were deemed unfriendly to the vulnerable administration of President Robert Mugabe. Interspersed with recollections of the horrific scenes of carnage Tucker witnessed and covered, the struggle for Chipo forces consideration of the drive to save one child while many are dying. The story also touches on the challenges of interracial relationships and contrasts black Africans and African Americans; the author is white, from rural Mississippi, and Vita is black, from Detroit, yet in many ways she is more akin to his Deep South family than to her Zimbabwean neighbors. 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 for public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/03.]-Janet Ingraham Dwyer, Worthington P.L., OH

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