Digging to America

Anne Tyler is a master at writing about the little day to day things that occupy our lives while subtly teaching us amazing things. In Digging to America she tells the story of two American families.

One is a family of European descent, made up of people one expects in suburbia. There's Bitsy and Brad Donaldson. Bitsy is a well intentioned woman, but one who likes to encourage others to do things her way. Brad is an easy going man who not only goes along with Bitsy's ideas but seems to enjoy them. Bitsy's dad is also an important part of this family. He's a widower who is lonely and looking for someone with whom to share the rest of his life.

The second American family is the Yazdans. These are people of Iranian descent who have settled show more in America. The politics in Iran drove them out of that country, but there is very little focus on that aspect of their culture. In this family there is Sami, a man who has been raised in America and his wife, Ziba, who grew up in Iran. Maryam is Sami's mother. She is a widow whose arranged marriage had some problems.

The two families meet at an airport where both the Donaldsons and the Yazdans are awaiting the arrival of daughters they have adopted from Korea. The two families become friends and learn from each other as their children grow.

This novel speaks to topics such as adoption and going on after losing a spouse. But it's main focus is on defining (or questioning) what is an American family.

I was glad I read this book now, since at the time I'm writing this we are in the process of picking candidates to run for President. The issue of how to treat Muslims is going to be huge in this election. This book gives us a picture of an average Muslim family. They have issues, like everyone else, and some of those issues concern a background with problems due to Iranian politics. But they are focused on raising their child and on their relationships with their friends, just like the rest of us. I think a book like this helps us remember that people are people and that using a religious belief as a rational to create databases that track people and limit their freedoms is a dangerous step and one that does not make the world a safer place.

Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions show less

Anne Tyler reaches a bit beyond her usual population when she investigates the lives of two Baltimore couples who adopt Korean babies. One of the couples is a classic WASP family reaching beyond their own stereotypes, and the others are young members of an Iranian immigrant community. Both of the extended families are also very much a part of the mix, so the young couples’ lives reach out to impact numerous others. The story begins when the two families meet at the airport on the day they will receive their babies, and continues to document the friendship they forge as the years pass, the children grow up, and the families weather the usual crises, celebrations, deaths and misunderstandings. Like all of Tyler’s tales, it is a simple show more but thoughtful story, full of human growth, but not high-speed action. Ultimately, it examines what it means to be American, and how each member – native-born or not – must forge his or her own path to membership, his or her own definition of national identity. I thought it was excellent. show less

The Anne Tyler formula seems to be pretty straight-forward:
Visit a family at different times in their lives, focusing on various family members (but maintaining a third-person POV), and show how they change over the years.

In Digging to America, she mixes it up a little by following TWO families, who meet at the airport the day their Korean-born adopted daughters arrive. The Dickinson-Donaldson clan is Ms. Tyler's typical WASPy family, with adoptive mom Bitsy (yes, Bitsy!) becoming sometimes caricaturesque in her desire to be the perfect mom. The Yazdans are an Iranian-American family (husband Sami was born in the U.S., while wife Ziba immigrated as a child) who struggle to balance their culture with the pressures to assimilate. The two show more families' lives become entwined as the girls grow up, with alternately hilarious and heart-warming results.

The most interesting character for me is the foil to Bitsy's pushy striving: Sami's widowed mother Maryam. Extremely dignified and reserved (to the point that she is sometimes mocked by Ziba's family), she watches from a distance until she finds herself pulled into the...interesting family dynamics.

Overall, another solid family drama from Ms. Tyler with a dose of humor. (There's an entire chapter that focuses on a toddler refusing to give up pacifiers and Bitsy completely losing her shit. It is hilarious.) show less

Digital audiobook narrated by Blair Brown

A story of the immigrant experience and two families united by the decision to adopt. The novel opens at the airport where the Donaldsons and the Yazdans wait for the daughters they’ve adopted from Korea to arrive. Bitsy and Brad Donaldson, their parents, siblings, nieces and nephews are all there, loud, boisterous, excited to welcome the new addition to their family – Jin-Ho. They virtually take over the gate area. Lost at the back of the crowd wait Maryam, her son, Sami, and his American-Iranian wife, Ziba. Maryam Yazdan had come to America as a young bride and was widowed before she was forty. She retains the reserved, formal demeanor of her Iranian upbringing. Though they don’t express show more it outwardly, the Yazdans are just as excited to welcome Sooki, whom they will call Susan, to their family.

Tyler writes so well about family dynamics, about all the little events in our lives that both form and show who we are. One sentence perfectly sums it up: “Like more life-altering moments, it was disappointingly lacking in drama.” Over the course of the novel the reader will witness many of these little moments, will watch as two families come together based on a chance meeting, will learn how they differ and how they are the same.

The book also explores what it means to be “American.” Maryam, having lived two thirds of her life in the United States, carrying an American passport, still feels like a foreigner. Ziba, having come to America as a teenager, is fully assimilated, though she still speaks with a slight accent. Bitsy could never be mistaken for anything but an American; friendly and outgoing, offering her opinion on everything without a thought to how it might be received, and yet desperate to infuse her children’s upbringing with some of their native cultures (even when the kids want nothing more than to fit in with their peers, and not wear those “ridiculous outfits”).

As I got to know these characters, I grew to love them. And I wanted to give them all a big hug at the end.

Blair Brown does a fine job narrating the audiobook. She’s a talented actress and breathes life into all these characters. I particularly liked the way she interpreted Maryam and Bitsy, two women who are virtually polar opposites. show less

This novel feels like Tyler, light of touch, clear observations, small but crucial interactions. The story of two very different families, both of which adopt infants from Korea who arrive at the Baltimore airport on the same day. The way the two mothers draw together, over time, despite their extreme differences.

The character who I found most interesting wa Maryam, who changes and grows tremendously in the course of the novel. It is her son Sami and Sami's wife who have adopted the baby girl from Korea. In fact, Maryam's story dwarfs everything else, and the resolution revolves around the questions she has been asking herself since she came to the US. Questions about identity and family and tradition that Tyler answers in a clear, show more understated but hopeful voice. show less

This is a really strong effort by Tyler. She is such a economical writer, here creating memorable characters and situations in under 300 pages. As usual, she writes about ordinary, middle-class Baltimoreans. This time it's two families who just happen to meet at the airport while they wait for the Korean babies they are adopting. As unlikely as it might seem, they become close, almost like extended family. The twist is that one family is white-bread American and the other is Iranian-American. Their cultures don't actually clash all that much, but there is much humor and sweetness as their lives slowly and inexorably entwine. The characters with the most focus are Maryam, Bitsy, and Dave, and I found them completely endearing. I don't show more think this replaces "Ladder of Years" as my favorite Tyler novel, but I found it superior to "A Spool of Blue Thread", "Clock Dance", and even "Breathing Lessons". show less

Anne Tyler, the queen of quirky but loveable, has done it again. She reaches into the heart of people who seem so different than ourselves, and reveals them to be just like us. Why is it that when we feel insecure (or like we aren’t like other people or that everyone has the key but us), we can’t look around and see that everyone else feels the same way? We are just people trying to find our way through whatever life or circumstances we find ourselves in.

The story centers around two families, each of whom adopt a Korean child on the same day. The children bind the families together, despite the obvious differences between them. One family is abjectly American, the other Iranian. Maryam, the Iranian grandmother, feels like an show more outsider, even after thirty-five years of being an American.

You start to believe that your life is defined by your foreignness. You think everything would be different if only you belonged.’If only I were back home,’ you say, ‘and you forget that you wouldn’t belong there either, after all these years. It wouldn’t be home at all anymore.’

I have only been transplanted from one state to another, but I know this feeling well. I have also lived away for thirty-five years, and I often think about going “home” and wonder where home would be. Places change, people change, perhaps if we do not carry home around with us, we lose it.

The book is full of such moments and thoughts that feel real to me. And these people feel real to me...they like one another in spite of all the reasons there are not to like one another. Without noticing, they come to love one another. They are complicated, flawed and human, they make us laugh, shake our heads, and then cry. Nothing happens that is spectacular, but then isn’t that true of life? Most of our most significant living is done in very ordinary ways. show less