Dodging Africa

Dodging Africa: Sisters. Journeys. Men. Witchdoctor. Africa. Hope. Two sisters, separated by continents, each take life-changing journeys to find themselves and each other, along with the men who bring them love, and loss, during 1968's Summer of Love. Raised in Botswana, Willa Dodge leaves the only world she knows, a remote hospital clinic in the Kalahari, and her first love, to journey to Boston to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. Instead, she begins an unforgettable cross-country journey to find her elusive sister, Nora, in the cultural turbulence of the late 1960s, with only a clue on a postcard, and the help of others searching for meaning and purpose. Intersecting the journeys of both sisters, Tunney, a Marine healing from the Viet Nam war, becomes a friend to one, a lover to the other, and a bridge to their future. Readers have fallen in love with Mma Cookie, Willa's wise African mother, have loved and hated Tom, the man who stole Willa's heart in Africa, and questioned her cold, surgeon mother, whose successful bush-hospital came at the expense of her daughter's care. Nora Dodge's parallel story pulls readers in as she leaves behind the privileged world of her surgeon-father, and crosses the country on her own journey of loss, discovery and hope.