Newly-independent Uganda seems like the perfect place for a primatologist to conduct ground-breaking fieldwork on wild baboons. But to his wife, trying to mother a young daughter while approaching the birth of her second child in the midst of elephants, wild buffalo and hippos, surely the relative safety of England or the U.S. is preferable. When Uganda erupts into civil war and her child is born in a hospital under siege, Jennifer Jolly must learn to balance her support for her husband against her desire for her family’s safety, a safety that’s tested again under the murderous reign of Idi Amin.