Zoya's Gift: Building a Bridge to a Global Family | A Memoir. Questo articolo non è disponibile.Zoya's Gift: Building a Bridge to a Global Family | A Memoir

Still recovering from the heartbreak of infertility, memoirist Gail McCormick and her husband volunteer to host two Children of Chernobyl for a summer reprieve from radiation exposure. Fate pairs the Seattle couple with eight-year-old Ukrainian twin sisters from Belarus—and rekindles Gail’s childhood dream to build a bridge of peace between the US and the former Soviet Union.

Over four summers of mayhem and magic with the twins, a deep relationship takes root. When the girls age out of the program that brought them to Seattle, Gail confronts her Cold War fears and travels with her husband to reunite with them in Ukraine and Belarus. On this soul-making trip to a land of unspeakable loss, she celebrates life in the homes of an accordion-playing Chernobyl hero and a barefooted babushka who distills her own vodka, and—behind the remnants of the Iron Curtain—finds her place as an honorary mother and babushka in a four-generation family of former Soviets. Poignant and culturally rich, her narrative transports readers to storied cities, villages, and dachas from Kyiv to Minsk.

Written with reverence, insight, humor, and hope, Zoya’s Gift illuminates the complexities, joys, and importance of reaching across political, class, and cultural divides.

Gail McCormick is a Seattle author and psychotherapist with Midwest roots. She was a finalist in the 2022 Pacific Northwest Writers unpublished memoir competition and took first place for intercultural essays in the 2021 Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition. Her stories have also appeared in the Timberline Review and the Santa Fe Literary Review, and she is the author of Living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Narratives of Coping. A former newspaper reporter and biographer with an MS in community counseling and a BA in journalism, today Gail volunteers her services to community organizations serving immigrants and others affected by dislocation and trauma. Her passions include nature, travel, interfaith spirituality, farmers’ markets, and all things organic. She and her husband live in Seattle.