THIS IS ALSO A LOVE STORY

A reporter searches for a richer framework for covering international crises.

Having spent her career documenting tragedies of war, oppression, and instability, Hayden offers this collection of unlikely love stories to counter a “specific kind of detachment crisis going on.” Romantic partners disperse along Ukraine’s front lines and celebrate weddings in Iraq, former child soldiers return to their families in Uganda, and children orphaned by genocide in Rwanda build “artificial families” with other survivors. Across current conflicts, the aftermath of older ones, and the beleaguered landscapes where lines between “current” and “aftermath” are blurred, couples, families, and communities show interest in, commitment to, and care for each other that is both twisted and enhanced by persistent hunger, the hum of weaponized drones, and the vigilance survival requires. In these contexts, the rush of new love can be misinterpreted as spying, and celebratory gunshots are assumed to be violent clashes. Hayden does not skimp on harsh details or obscure their attendant horror and grief but rather uses them to throw into relief the stubborn and expansive nature of love. She carries readers into both familiar front-page issues and the underreported shading of this terrain, like the tension between the leaders of northern Nigeria’s ruthless Boko Haram and their ISIS counterparts or the collapse of the Lebanese banking system in the wake of civil war. Behind each geopolitical struggle lie not just individual humans but entire webs of human relationships. Hayden began her project to atone for her contributions to a media topography that co-opts despair for sensational hooks. But the resulting text is much greater than personal amends; rather, it extricates human stories from headlines that numb us to violence and struggle and imbues those stories with courageous complexity and compassion.

A vivid and affecting reimagining of both reportage and how its consumers are called to relate to its content.