The Last Resort

Starred review from September 21, 2009
Born in Zimbabwe, New York-based travel writer Rogers moves between two worlds with wit and grace while telling the dire-straits story of his childhood in Zimbabwe and his recent return. Zimbabwe's extremes of beauty and corruption will lure readers into the everyday struggle to preserve property and life against punishing weather, astronomical inflation, and the threat of other people. Angst, humor, beauty and terror mingle freely in his narrative: returning home he finds the family's backpacker lodge has become a brothel, and estates of "irises and tulips and acres of pruned white roses" have disappeared. He marvels at the "untamed roots of blazing flamboyant trees... buckling the city's pavement," the metamorphosis of the hardscrabble poor into diamond dealers, and his own parents: "instead of being crushed by this struggle, beaten down, they had been buoyed by it." This rousing memoir should win over anyone with a taste for exotic can't-go-home-again stories.

August 1, 2009
A Brooklyn travel writer returns to his South African homeland to rescue the family farm from imminent danger.

Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Rogers kept his eye on the tumultuous political situation in his native land from afar, as white farmers, a small fraction of Africa's population, were routinely murdered or terrorized into surrendering their farm land. This posed a distressing situation for the author since his parents owned and operated Drifters, a backpacker tourist lodge attached to a farm. Rogers traveled from his London home in 2002 to pen an article on the upheaval, arriving in the midst of a presidential electoral scandal while the unrelenting land invasions continued to force thousands to flee. The stories recounted by his parents were horrific. Neighboring farms were being ambushed by"war veterans" violently reclaiming land under the auspices of President Robert Mugabe. By 2004, Rogers, now in his late 30s, had relocated to a middle-class Brooklyn neighborhood with his fiance. But things continued to degrade for his incredibly resilient parents, who found themselves surrounded by prostituting"settlers," illegal diamond dealers and a marijuana plantation, all while the secret meetings of the anti-Mugabe"Movement for Democratic Change" prospered. The author's parents' worst fears were confirmed when a family friend warned that a ruthless, powerful political commissar had moved in across the street—"an organizer, a militant, an idealogue, someone who might get the settlers riled up about more land and eyeing my parents' own home"—set to wreak havoc on the family business. Fortunately, some clever negotiating mediated disaster, and a unification rally energized the camp of Mugabe rival Morgan Tsvangirai. But more trouble awaited the farm, along with lots of legal wrangling and a bittersweet, disquieting conclusion. Though the second half of the book meanders and diminishes in urgency, the Mozambique frontier of the author's youth remains a deadly, perfidious place to behold, near or far.

Eye-opening memoir weaving violent Zimbabwean politics with the camaraderie and fearlessness of a family in crisis.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 27, 2009
Although Rogers's home may be exotic-his family owns a backpackers' lodge in the African bush named Drifters-his story is the all-too-familiar tale of a son's midlife journey back to his roots. After leaving Zimbabwe to pursue a career as a journalist, Rogers comes back amid the violent land reclamation campaign of the 2000s. Despite arriving to protect his parents from Mugabe's corrupt war veterans, Rogers discovers his parents need no caretaking. Their passion for the country where their ancestors had lived for 350 years compels them to stay despite the government's efforts to evict all white citizens. At its heart, this is the story of Rogers's reacquaintance with his parents, two people he greatly misunderstood and underestimated for much of his life. Verdict Forreaders who have parents they struggle to understand; Rogers's journey of discovery will cause an acute twinge of love and pain in their hearts.-Veronica Arellano, Univ. of Houston Libs., TX

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2009
As President Mugabes regime turns belligerent toward white farmers, journalist Rogers witnesses the struggle of his family and others to hold on to their land. This is not simply a case of return to Britain, as Mugabe declares, because Rogers dates his African ancestry back 350 years. It is instead the story of all who love Zimbabwe. Rogers decision to write about his parents lodge and the people who find refuge there as violence erupts and the economy turns catastrophic brings him close to all kinds of people, black and white, from war veterans and politicians to farmers and squatters. Scrupulous in his documentation, Rogers talks to everybody about the way things were and what might come next. He fears an attack on his parents yet is bemused by their determination as they work on a cookbook called Recipes for Disaster as food becomes scarce. From dollars and diamonds to pot and prostitution, Rogers shows what survival looks like when your government loses its collective mind. Brilliantly funny and wry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)