On Friday, August 15, 1997, in Baltimore airport, two families wait for their adopted baby daughters from Korea. After the babies are legally transferred to their respective families, the two families connect.

The arrival of the babies, their upbringing, and happy and sad events tie these two middle-class families with a bond akin to that of blood relatives. On one side is the Donaldsons, a large, rowdy American family. On the other side is the Yazdans, an Iranian-American family whose matriarch, Maryam Yazdan, is a first generation American.

The Donaldsons keep the original name of the baby, Jin-ho, and plan to raise her without letting her forget her roots. Yazdans, on the other hand change the name of their baby from Suki to Suzan for her to feel at home. Despite this and other differences, the families adapt to each other well and become very close friends.

At the end, the strong, reserved personality of the protagonist Maryam Yazdan rises over the other characters, and although the story does not seem to carry a message, Maryam's story points to the idea that America is a melting pot and what makes an American is not in the papers people carry but in their feelings toward their adopted country.
The language of the novel is in the typical Ann Tyler style, easy yet mesmerizing, meditative yet flowing, and the story is paced with an even rhythm.

rejoicing over the diversity of our country.

the authenticity of the characters. The reader finds no stereotypes but real people who stick to living their lives. As characters take turns telling each chapter, they are also given their say. At the end, the reader finds all characters to be meticulously drawn including their habits and quirks.

Ann Tyler, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Her short stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post and other magazines. Some of her novels are made into movies. Her other books are: If Morning Ever Comes, The Tin Can Tree, A Slipping-Down Life, The Clock Winder, Celestial Navigation, Searching for Caleb, Morgan's Passing, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons, Saint Maybe, Ladder of Years, A Patchwork Planet, Back When We Were Grownups, The Amateur Marriage.

Digging to America is her seventeenth book

the author looks at the everyday lives of her characters with a touching humor and the eye of an analyst. This makes the story absorbing and a pleasure to read.

Several secondary themes are also explored in the novel such as the concept of family, friendship, adoption, the layering of relationships between people, diversity of cultural and ethnic tastes, the immigrant experience, estrangements, illness, adapting to widowhood and to becoming a widower. In the novel, neither culture tops the other in superiority; on the contrary, we delightfully watch the coming together of the two different cultures under a very positive light.

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Created Nov 26, 2007 at 8:23pm • Submit your own review...