Digging to America

Friday August 15th, 1997 - The night the girls arrived, two tiny Korean babies are delivered to Baltimore to two families who have no more in common than this. First there are the Donaldsons, decent Brad and homespun, tenacious Bitsy (with her 'more organic than thou' airs, who believes fervently that life can always be improved), two full sets of grandparents and a host of big-boned, confident relatives, taking delivery with characteristic American razzmatazz. Then there are the Yazdans, pretty, nervous Ziba (her family 'only one generation removed from the bazaar') and carefully assimilated Sami, with his elegant, elusive Iranian-born widowed mother Maryam, the grandmother-to-be, receiving their little bundle with wondering discretion. Every year, on the anniversary of 'Arrival Day' their two extended families celebrate together, with more and more elaborately competitive parties, as tiny, delicate Susan, wholesome, stocky Jin-ho and, later, her new little sister Xiu-Mei, take roots, become American. While Maryam, the optimistic pessimist, confident that if things go wrong - as well they may - she will manage as she has before, contrarily preserves her 'outsider' status, as if to prove that, despite her passport, she is only a guest in this bewildering country. Full of achingly hilarious moments and toe-curling misunderstandings, "Digging to America" is a novel with a deceptively small domestic canvas, and subtly large themes - it's about belonging and otherness, about insiders and outsiders, pride and prejudice, young love and unexpected old love, families and the impossibility of ever getting it right, about striving for connection and goodness against all the odds. And the end catches you by the throat, ambushes your emotions when you least expect it, as only Tyler can.

ISBN 0099499398   Pages 336 ISBN13 9780099499398 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 230 Publisher Vintage   Published in London Imprint Vintage   Height (mm) 199 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 132 Publication date 19 Apr 2007   Spine width (mm) 22 DEWEY 813.54   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

A "NEW YORK TIMES BESTSE"NATIONAL BESTSELLERA "NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLERA "NEW YORK TIMES" NOTABLE BOOK OF 2006 "Tyler shapes her stories with a reassuring and uplifting clarity." --"The Gazette" (Montreal) "As in her previous books, the writing here makes for wholesome, comforting fare, spiced as always with urbane wit and a knack for nailing the small truths behind fine details." --"The Globe and Mail" "In "Digging to America," Tyler also holds up a mirror to the wider North American culture, especially the contemporary obsession with child-rearing that makes young children kings and queens in their households. . . . You'll find yourself laughing at all the apt and telling details Tyler summons up to capture how these two families interact -- and often fail to understand each other." --"Vancouver Sun""Tyler is an adept cultural chronicler. . . . She zeroes in on the minutiae of social encounters. . . . Hers is a portrait of small segment of society painted in elaborate detail." --"National Post""A subtle lesson in how to embrace other cultures -- how to go beyond tolerance to love." --"Winnipeg Free Press" "In "Digging to America," Tyler exhibits her knack for softening the sharp edges of human contact, showing people with smudges of vulnerability on their faces as they dig toward each other." --"Toronto Star""Her prose is at once unpretentious and elegiac, like a photograph by Dorothea Lange, and her imagery has staying power. Taken together, the distinct but overlapping worlds of her novels have formed a Sensurround literary record of the 20th-century American family." --"The""New York Times""""Warm and optimistic, this story about adoption raises issues of belonging and identity"" The Times" (UK) "Anne Tyler returns to her subtle best with a novel about families involved in international adoptions" --"Observer" (UK) "In Digging to America, Tyler also holds up a mirror to then

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