Book Club Discussion Questions
For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Zimbabwe and our BookBrowse Review of Love in the Driest Season.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
About This Book
When foreign correspondent Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, are transferred from Warsaw, Poland, to Zimbabwe in 1997, they are thrilled with the assignment and eager to put down roots in their new home. Yet not even Tucker's hands-on experiences reporting from the most violent and lawless corners of the globe could prepare them for life at the epicenter of the worldwide AIDS epidemic. With an AIDS death approximately every twenty minutes, an average life span of thirty-eight, hundreds of thousands of babies orphaned or abandoned, and an acute, collective denial about the causes of the disease and the necessity of testing, the Zimbabwe the Tuckers encounter is a nation spiraling out of control. Tucker writes, "The scale of death, and the depths of misery it entailed, defied the imagination even for someone like me, who had chronicled some of the world's deadliest conflicts for the better part of a decade."
In an attempt to ground themselves and make a fraction of a difference in the unfolding political and social chaos, the Tuckers begin volunteering at Emerald Hills Children's Home, a state-run orphanage set in an industrial slum on the south end of Harare. To their dismay, and despite their stopgap efforts at modernizing the facility, Tucker and Vita watch helplessly as thirty-five infants die there in twenty-four months. It is in this climate of despair and fear that the couple meets Chipo, the baby who will change their lives forever. Left to die in a field outside of town, Chipo is a tiny survivor in the deadly environment of the orphanage, holding on to life even as her weight plummets to just over four pounds and she wrestles with respiratory failure. For Tucker and Vita, it's love at first sight, and they begin their maddening race to simultaneously keep Chipo alive and wade through the excruciating bureaucratic red tape of Zimbabwe's adoption laws. Meanwhile, President Mugabe's virulent anti-American sentiments reach a boiling point, and the Tuckers are suddenly no longer safe under a regime that labels its foreign journalists "enemies of the state."
This unforgettable, at times shocking, story of love flourishing in the most hostile environment imaginable combines Tucker's shrewd eye for journalistic detail and his heartfelt conviction as a new father. This guide is designed to direct your reading group's discussion of
Love in the Driest Season.
Reading Guide
- When the arrival of Tucker's and Vita's luggage in Zimbabwe precedes the granting of Tucker's work permit, Tucker is charged by a senior officer in Zimbabwe's Department of Immigration Control with American arrogance, and he is obliquely accused of racism: "You think little black Zimbabwe needs big white American men like you." This assumption of American hubris becomes all too familiar later as Tucker and Vita confront Zimbabwe's convoluted child welfare system. How much energy does Tucker put into proving the theory wrong? With whom does he succeed? Are there any points at which he inadvertently personifies the hated American stereotype?
- Raised amid the devastating poverty and racism of rural Mississippi, Tucker escapes his surroundings and gets a sense of perspective through voracious reading. "I began to get a sense of where I was. It would eventually form one of the central lessons of my personal and professional life: I had been raised in the heart of the most racist state in America, and as a child, I had accepted the perverse as normal." What "perversions" are he and Vita asked to accept as normal in Zimbabwe? Had they been able to stay in Zimbabwe indefinitely, as planned, do you think these perversions would have become more or less palatable to them?
- Tucker writes: "I had the working idea that there was a higher form of truth to be found in the world's most impoverished and violent places, a rough-hewn honesty that could not be found elsewhere. Life had a tautness to it there, a sheen that seemed to say something about the way the world was, not how anyone wanted it to be." What do you think of Tucker's "working idea"? What toll does living in these conditions exact from him and his colleagues, and is it worth it? How does his idea evolve after he falls in love with Chipo?
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Three Rivers.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
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