TO CALI
About the Book
Embark on a poignant journey that will touch your heart in author Corinne Chateau’s inspirational memoir, The Road to Cali.
Chateau didn’t know if she’d make a good mother — she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to be a mother. Two miscarriages seemed to confirm, it was not destined to be. That is, until, she heard about a baby in the distant Republic of Georgia.
Chateau and her husband are heartbroken when, after traveling to Georgia and bonding with the baby Cali, the Georgian President stops all foreign adoptions. What ensues is the fight of their lives to rescue the infant child. And for Chateau, the discovery of a love “beyond anything I could have imagined.”
“A couple’s decision to adopt turns into a heart-wrenching struggle to rescue a child from the confines of a cold Eastern European orphanage.
With daily diary entries, Chateau escorts readers through the labyrinth-like process of foreign adoption, from the motivations that inspired her decision to her ultimate journey home with a child. Chateau and her husband Brian were actors in New York who encountered fertility problems during their cursory attempts to have children. Several chance encounters left Chateau fixated on adopting.
The author, once reconciled to the idea of motherhood, needed to come to terms with the notion of casting one’s lot, and finances, with complete strangers at an adoption agency. This proved to be no easy task, but it paled in comparison with what followed. Chateau chronicles the emotionally exhausting efforts she and her husband experienced once they met and fell in love with a Georgian infant, Kali, whose name was later changed to the titular Cali. His adoption depended upon a host of ever-changing and draconian protocols and paperwork in the Republic of Georgia, recounted by the author with mind-bending and heartbreaking clarity. Through the author’s research and travels, readers are awarded a richly textured glimpse of the history and culture of the country, specifically the town of Tbilisi; tales of the generosity and altruism of its inhabitants are particularly stirring.
More than a decade has passed since Chateau’s experience, but her intimate journal so poignantly conveys the wide range of emotions incurred during the adoption process only the most aloof of readers would be able to resist tears.
A winning, emotional journey that will satisfy readers’ maternal instincts.”
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About Corinne
Corinne was born in New York City, a first generation child of French and Polish ancestry. She attended Barnard College, the graduate film program at NYU, and the American Film Institute. As an actress, Corinne studied with acting gurus Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. She has appeared in feature films, television, on and off Broadway and regional theater. She has worked with renowned directors such as Elia Kazan and Arthur Penn and has appeared with Anne Bancroft, Shelly Winters, Katharine Hepburn, Ellen Burstyn, among others. As a directing fellow at the American Film Institute she wrote and directed three films. She has taught acting in the graduate film department at NYU and in the Actor’s Studio MFA program at the New School and Pace University, and has been a longtime member of the Actor’s Studio and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. She has authored the play “The Sun Shines East” and has written, directed and produced her first feature-length film, “Safer in Silence”.
