Love in the Driest Season

A war reporter inured to violence and misery, Tucker is still overwhelmed by the plight of abandoned children in Zimbabwe, where he is temporarily living. He and his African-American wife, Vita, decide to adopt Chipo, a sickly baby girl, but the local bureaucracy objects because they are foreigners. Throw in Tucker's wild travel schedule, political events in Zimbabwe, horrors in the Congo and Rwanda, and a bit of Tucker's Mississippi white family history--and you won't want to miss a word, especially with Michael Kramer reading. Through a veneer of reportorial objectivity, you hear frustration, compassion, tenderness, and determination. Long African names roll easily off his tongue. A beautiful tale, sensitively read. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine


Neely Tucker describes how he and his wife went to Zimbabwe, where he worked as a foreign correspondent, during the late 1990s. Painting the Zimbabwe setting with colorful descriptions, he describes how it was impossible for them not to become deeply affected by the AIDS epidemic, political unrest, and other devastation felt by the people there. The discovery of a dying child, Chipo, whose recuperation they oversee, changes their lives forever. As it becomes progressively more dangerous for journalists and their families to remain in Zimbabwe, their steadfast love for Chipo complicates their fate. Facing enormous uncertainty in their lives, they must make overwhelming decisions. B.J.P. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine