Anne Tyler manages to create such believable characters time and time again and in Digging to America she delivers yet again. The two families in the novel are linked forever by the Korean children they have each adopted. They celebrate “Arrival Day” each year with a party together. Through the various parties and with the passage of time Tyler explores the characters’ differences, their varying hopes and dreams, cultural backgrounds, sense of fitting in. A brilliant scenario for putting these different families together and beautifully written.
Anne Tylers richest, most deeply searching novela story about what it is to be an American, and about Iranian-born Maryam Yazdan, who, after 35 years in this country, must finally come to terms with her outsiderness.Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryams fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate: an arrival party that from then on is repeated every year as the two families become more and more deeply intertwined. Even Maryam is drawn in up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by Bitsy Donaldsons recently widowed father, all the values she cherishes her traditions, her privacy, her othernessare suddenly threatened.A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that immerse us in the challenges of both sides of the American story.
'Out of this everyday material she spins gold: stories so achingly truthful, so achingly funny, so sad and so real that you can only marvel…her trademark blend of observant comedy and tragedy, and her window into the human heart, are gloriously apparent' Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail
'Digging to America is another superb novel, warm-hearted and funny' Caroline Moore, Spectator
'A small exquisitely painted canvas. Don’t miss it' Woman & Home
'Warm and optimistic, this story about adoption raises issues of belonging and identity' Bel Mooney, The Times
Author
About Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis in 1941 but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. This is Anne Tyler’s sixteenth novel; her eleventh, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore. In 2012 Anne Tyler was the winner of the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence.
