Customer Reviews

Digging to America: A Novel

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I've always loved Anne Tyler's novels. Frankly, I consider her to be a modern American literary treasure. I love the predictability of Tyler's novels--there is usually a Baltimore setting, a focus on small family drama, a woman who suddenly find herself a stranger in her own life, and a host of unforgettable spot-on-perfect characters that jump to life off the page and live alongside us while we observe them interacting with one another. Tyler's latest novel, "Digging to America," is no exception; however, with this new work, Tyler adds a number of wonderful new ingredients.

The new ingredients are cultural differences, cultural assimilation, and an endearing Iranian-American character who finds herself a stranger, not only in her own life, but in her adopted country as well. There is an intriguing additional ingredient for those readers who love to get inside the minds and lives of authors: this book has strong autobiographical overtones, and this is a real bonus for an author as reclusive as Tyler! More about that later.

"Digging to America" is a novel about the slow amalgamation of two very different American families: the Donaldsons, a bright, cheery, everything-out-in-the-open, mildly quirky, but nonetheless typical, middle-class American family; and the Yazdans, an Iranian-American family who exhibit most of the archetypal cultural hang-ups of that particular ethnic subculture. On first appearance, these families seem to be polar opposites.

They are drawn together by chance at the Baltimore airport, where each family comes to collect its newly adopted baby daughter from Korea. From the very first, all the differences between these two families appear in strong, stark, loving, humorous, and typically Tyleresque contrast.

After this first meeting, it would have been natural in "real life" for both of these families to disappear from each other's lives. But, this is an Anne Tyler novel, and you can count on Bitsy Donaldson's quirky, meddlesome, everything-is-possible nature to get these two families together again and again, year after year at annual family rituals. There are the "Arrival Parties," where the families celebrate their daughter's first entrance into America. These parties are an all-American patchwork of 4th-of-July celebration and family hoedown. The centerpiece is a manic family sing-a-long of "She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain." Then there are the autumn "Raking Parties," both girls' birthday parties, Thanksgiving celebrations, Christmas parties, and most original of all, the "Binky Farewell Party." This last affair was specially designed to help the Donaldson's second adopted daughter--this time from China--give up her embarrassingly long-lived reliance on binkies.

These parties provide the novel with its structure. Each event works like a short story, and as such they are complete and enjoyable in their own right. But Tyler chooses to weave these events into a novel. She uses these parties as perfect observation points for readers to watch these two families interact, grow, and change over time. We watch them for a decade. Between the parties, there are major life-altering events that occur in the lives of individual Donaldson and Yazdan family members. But these big life events are not the focus--the focus always remains on the small everyday dramas and the slow changes that move these families--little by little--together, until they are seamlessly one.

If there is a main character in this novel, it is Maryam Yazdan. It is her life that Tyler focuses on with great love, insight, humor, and understanding. Maryam first comes to America four decades before the opening of this story. She comes as a teenage bride willingly accepting a quasi-arranged marriage with a slightly older man who has already made America his home. For 40 years, Maryam has been a woman caught between two cultures--never feeling at home in either. She feels perpetually "the outsider," with no concept about how to live as one who belongs.

Anne Tyler married an Iranian-American psychiatrist at the age of 22 and this marriage lasted for 34 years until her husband's untimely death from cancer in 1997. She has two children from this marriage and has not remarried. Obviously, she knows a great deal about the intermingling of Iranian and American families. Undoubtedly, there are strong autobiographical threads hidden within the fabric of these characters' fictional lives.

It is Maryam that we readers end up rooting for at the end of this novel. It is her life that we want so much to see changed for the better. Perhaps this is Anne Tyler unconsciously trying to write herself into a less solitary future. Regardless, Maryam is pure magic--a character long to be remembered, a character long to be loved.

Eventually, the families amalgamate into one big happy multiethnic Donaldson-Yazdan Tribe--part Korean, part Chinese, part Iranian...but finally, for all of them, one-hundred percent American.

This is a book about families It is about what is means to be a family. It is also about Americans and what is means to be an American. It is not one of Tyler's masterpieces, but it is delightful and enjoyable on many levels, and I recommend it highly.

As a big Anne Tyler fan, I had long been looking forward to reading her latest book, not just because I am a fan, but because of the subject matter. My maternal relatives are Armenian/Assyrian immigrants from Iran, and although Maryam and Ziba are Iranians and (I assume -- religion is touched upon very lightly in the book, if at all) Moslem, I knew there would be lots of cultural things in the book that I could identify with.
I was not disappointed in this -- Tyler blends her wonderful characterizations deftly with descriptions of the food and customs of the country, along with some very insightful writing regarding the feelings of the immigrant in the U.S. I know firsthand (from my mother and her relatives) the longing for assimilation, and the feeling of hopelessness that you will ever be looked at as anything other than an object of curiosity.

Maryam was, to me, by far the most interesting character and the one Anne Tyler herself grew to be the most interested in. She is very different than my own mother, who is an extrovert and LOVES talking about her cultural differences and her past life. Maryam's reserve and dignity are more reflective of the Iranians I have met. I would have liked to have seen Ziba's character developed more. She was young when she emigrated to the U.S. and definitely embraced American life and customs to the nines, but I felt there were some ambivalences there that were touched upon that could have been better developed.

There really isn't much of a plot, and Anne Tyler herself says that plot is the last thing she thinks about when writing her wonderful novels. She is all about character development, and that suits me just fine. The constant shifting of viewpoints got on my nerves a little bit. That is a very popular technique these days, and I can follow it just fine, but after awhile I usually find myself wishing the author had stuck to just two viewpoints. Even as skilled a writer as Anne Tyler can leave the reader feeling that the book was just a little shallow as a result of this. Kind of like having too many people at a party, or more acquaintances than real friends. Luckily, Maryam is such a fascinating character, the book works well.

This is a charming book in its own placid way (had there been the possibility, I would have rated it with 3 1/2 stars).

Initially, I thought the main subject was adoption, in reality this book explores more than that. In fact, I believe that its core revolves around the issues of family dynamics and integration in every sense of the word, starting from adopting babies from a far away country/culture and the subsequent adjusting to a new life, all the way through the struggles (for the older members of the family) to become well-integrated in a foreign country.

This is true especially for Maryam, one of the Grannies, who moved to the USA as a young bride from Iran. Although the narrative gently shifts from character to character (the two adoptive families, the new babies, all the relatives on both sides etc.) -and each and every one has a fair share of space in the book-, I perceived that the main character is Maryam herself.
She has been a widow for years and it seems that, to this day, she has a sort of polite resilience to adjust to the American way of life (although she doesn't seem to miss her native country too much). Even so, she has found her niche and is content with the daily regularity of her life, until someone belonging to the other adoptive family -and to her, the sterotype of everything American- starts to show affection for her. Her sense of belonging, emotional and geographical, starts to oscillate causing a lingering and subtle vulnerability.
I see the rest of the story (the adoptions, the description of both families and most of the ensuing situations), almost as a contour line surrounding Maryam's tale.

On the whole, I'd say that the characterizations in this book are good and very real-life, but the story line is a bit weak. Not too memorable but certainly a pleasant read, even comical at times (the give-up-binky episode was very hilarious). I think this book is suitable for young readers too (14+).

Oh gosh, folks ... hear the news that this book is not so much about its stated subject matter -- the adopted Asian children, or the American and Iranian families into which they are adopted -- as it is about who these people are and how they react ...

The book is, at heart, a marvelous character study -- Anne Tyler at her very best -- drawing intricate, thoughtful portraits of "ordinary" people in particular circumstances ... gentle, kind, finely honed observations on the people involved and, well, life itself.

Yes, it was perhaps something of a stretch for the author [although the NYT Book Review tells us that "Ms. Tyler was married for more than three decades to the Iranian-born child psychiatrist Taghi Modarressi, who died in 1997"], to blend the various ethnic sensibilities, but Anne Tyler fans who may have been put off by the plot synopsis need not fear -- this is a wonderfully observed novel, among her best, and although the subject matter is somewhat different than her usual Baltimore cast of characters, it is also very similar (the characters are, after all, wherever they may have come from, living in Baltimore), in her finely delineated description of each of the characters.

This is not to imply that she doesn't have something to say about different cultures and their interactions -- she does, of course, have quite a lot to say about that, but it's very subtly embedded in the character studies.

Avid Anne Tyler fan that I am (going as far back as "Tin Can Tree"), I blew off this book for almost two years, based on professional reviews and my own sense that this might not be on target, but I am very pleased to report that having gotten over all that, this book is one of her very best -- I just loved it, as I have just loved all her books.

I think it would serve as great introduction for those who have not read Anne Tyler, and for those who already know her, it's a total "must read".

Two married couples, unable to have children on their own, adopt babies from foreign countries, and maintain a long friendship. The couples meet for the first time at the airport waiting for their baby girls to arrive on a plane. Yearly the two families, and their extended families, and friends meet to commemorate this day with a celebration.

This is an Anne Tyler novel, and one who has read her previous works should either be very happy, because reading her books are like revisiting the same theme with different characters and circumstances, or disappointed because they wish for a departure from the norm, perhaps.

I enjoy the predictability of her novels: familiarity is comforting. I do like novels that she has written that showcase more of her ability to be very funny. There are a few humorous moments here, but Accidental Tourist would be my choice over this if one had to choose just one book to get a feel for Anne Tyler. Her subject in that novel, a couple dealing with life after their young son is fatally shot while at a fast food restaurant, is no light weight matter, yet she deftly weaves subtle humor throughout in such a way that it is an expose of the human spirit, without too much hokeyness, which happens sometimes in her other works. She achieved a balance in that book that I think is what she is shooting for in the others. And Breathing Lessons did win the Pulitzer prize, but still I prefer The Accidental Tourist.

Again, the theme is that we all somewhat different, we are all somewhat alike. Take some bad things that life issues, and find a way to make things better. Overlook differences in people, search for commonalities, or at least a realization that differences can be what makes life exciting. A family doesn't always need to be biological, and sometimes those with whom one has less in common, can be the ones one ends up appreciating the most.

This is simultaneously a complexly layered novel, and a deceptively simple one.

People and their relationships are complex. Interpretations, sensations, experiences: all can be shared, each can be interpreted in different ways. The Donaldsons and the Dickinsons meet the Yazdans as their new daughters arrive from Korea. This story tells their stories over a number of years from that initial meeting.

We share happy moments, and sad, with people who were initially drawn together through a chance meeting at an airport but somehow become a greater part of each other's lives despite a range of cultural and experiential differences. Guided by Ms Tyler's prose, viewing people who are flawed, opinionated and wonderfully human it is difficult not to get caught up in the lives of the characters,

In the end, one of the key messages is that belonging is about perception and choice.

A beautiful novel, and one I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a very well-written story about people.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Coming to a Tyler book is, for me, like slipping into an old dressing gown or a treasured pair of well worn slippers. You know what you are in for: entering into the life of a family with all its oddities and all its eccentric characthers. This book is no different and is as equally satisfying as some of Tyler's best novels. I found this book very moving, Connie with the Cancer, Dave earnestly seeking out Maryam, Bitsy, the eccentric, par excellence, the Iranians trying hard to become Americans. And yet with all Tyler novels, one wishes for more. Maryam is probably the characther we get to know the best but some of the characthers are perhaps a bit too shadowy, but maybe thats just the way life is: we know some persons in our family better than others. I loved the ending but longed for the story to end on a more definitive note but again thats life.

I loved Digging to America. It seems to me essentially to have the same plot as some of her other novels: a person buffeted by difficult circumstances withdraws first and then gradually learns to rejoin the richness (loving family, friends, celebrations) of life.

Rebecca does this in Back When We Were Grownups, Delia does it in Ladder of Years, Macon does it in The Accidental Tourist, and Maryam does this in Digging to America.

As other reviewers have commented, a really enjoyable part of Anne Tyler's books is her ability to illuminate everyday life. In this book there is the added plus of seeing everyday life through the cultural lense of an Iranian woman. I also love Anne Tyler's quirky, but very sympathetic characters, and her sense of humor, that runs deeply and warmly through all of her books. The binky scene in this book rivals anything in Dickens, or even David Sedaris. I laughed out loud when the little girl has appropriated her best friend's pacifier at the end the of the party, and neighbors are all calling to complain that binkys are dropping into their hedges and all over their lawns.

The title of this book comes from this question: if children in the U.S. dig a hole to China, are children in China digging to America? This seems to be a metaphor for the question of whether perhaps we're all, even the most American-seeming American, digging to America, or trying to figure out what it means to be American.

When the Donaldson (American through-and-through) and the Yazdans (Iranian-American) adopt baby girls from Korea on the same day, the families become the best of friends. It is no surprise, perhaps, that the Donaldsons opt to keep their baby's Korean name and put lots of emphasis on her Korean heritage, whereas the Yazdans Americanize their daughter's name, and generally raise her as an American.

Unpredictably, it seems that the Donaldsons look as much to the Yazdans for clues about raising their daughter as the other way around. Which is what this book is really about, I think. It's not about being American. it's about creating a family.

I think this is close to being the best book of Ann Tylers. She is always a master of letting the reader into the thought processes of the everyday people that inhabit her books. In this book, two families who are very different in heritage, and outlook struggle to become friends. The introvert in me identifies with Maryann, and I loved the ending where her friends help her come out of herself.