Zoyas Gift: Building a Bridge to a Global Family | A Memoir

(Paperback)

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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 Belarusand rekindles Gails 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, andbehind the remnants of the Iron Curtainfinds 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, Zoyas Gift illuminates the complexities, joys, and importance of reaching across political, class, and cultural divides.

Reviews

"Gail McCormick's memoir reminds any woman who has yearned for children of her own that there are many ways to 'mother.' When one dream ends, an extraordinary life may begin."
--Melanie Notkin, author of Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness

"A tender odyssey of the soul, by turns both personal and political, Zoya's Gift is an intimate memoir of love and grief that shows how, with willingness and courage, there are many ways to create a family of the heart when a family of the womb was not to be."
--Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and author of Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children

Author Bio

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 She was a finalist in the 2022 Pacific Northwest Writers unpublished memoir competition and took first place for intercultural essays in the 2021 Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition.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.