Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir

"By noon, the ants had found the girl-child." From the first paragraph, this book had us hooked. Not only is it a great story, but very well written. My wife and I are in a similar situation, living in Africa and trying to adopt a child we've had for years, and the book seems pretty realistic to us. Of note, the author is neither cynical nor romantic about his family's experiences, and gives us a very good picture of the struggles of his heart as well as the external struggle for adoption.

Neely Tucker, a writer for the Washington Post , details his travels in Africa as a correspondent for the Detroit Times with his African American wife and their struggle to adopt a baby from Zimbabwe. This is a truly heartwarming story that wraps you up in their family struggles and at the end you hope the author writes a sequel so you can hear more about their life together.

The profound nature of love, and why it matters above all else in this life, has never been better described. For all of us suffering from compassion fatigue and self-absorption this is a joyful, triumphant, and heartbreaking wakeup call to the world and this life. Do yourself a BIG favor...read this book...perhaps aloud to someone you love.

Neely Tucker, a white journalist posted in Zimbabwe, and his wife Vita, a black woman, fall in love with a female infant in an orphanage in that country. The baby's name is Chipo, which means "gift" in the local language. The story, a family memoir, details the couple's attempts to adopt this baby with whom they have fallen in love. The story also explains the political situation in Zimbabwe, which is unstable and volatile, especially toward foreign journalists. There is also a great deal of information about the AIDS crisis in Africa, and how this dread disease has impacted so many families and created millions of orphans. These three topics were interwoven in the book to make a fascinating and extremely interesting story. I could feel the Tuckers' frustration with the bureaucratic red tape they had to wade through in order to someday adopt Chipo. I admired their tenacity--all because of their intense love for this beautiful baby. It would be interesting to follow this little girl into adulthood, and I hope Neely Tucker has such a possibility in mind.

As adoptive parents of two African children, this book captured our hearts from the very beginning. Absolutely heartwrenching, it is about love that refuses to be suffocated under mounds of "red tape". It is about the suffering, wars, political uprisings, diseases, which created the orphan crisis across the vast African continent. Thank you Neely Tucker for sharing your story!