Digging to America - Anne Tyler

Title: Digging To America Author: Anne Tyler Genre: Cultural Rating: 9/10 # pages: 277 Date read: September, 2007

Review: Through an amazing coincidence, two families are gathered to meet the same flight in order to welcome home the Korean girls they have adopted. Thrown together by chance, the Donaldsons and the Yazdans become friends, even though they have nothing in common other than adopting girls from the same country.

The Donaldsons is a big and boisterous all-American family who'll use any excuse to hold a party. They let their girl keep her Korean name, and try to teach her as much about her culture as possible. The Yazdans on the other hand is a small and private family of first-generation Americans hailing from Iran. They immediately decided to Americanize the name of their girl, in order to help her fit in as easily as possible.

Digging to America is a wonderful tale of the first five years the girls spend in USA. The characters are described lovingly but with tongue in cheek, making the reader immediately care for these quirky people. Sure Mother Donaldson thinks she knows everything better than the Yazdans and Grandmother Yazdan secretly looks down upon the Donaldsons for being "so typically American", but through the years they get to know and love each other and realize they aren't so different after all.

The point of view changes from chapter to chapter with every second chapter being told by somebody from the Donaldson family and every second by somebody from the Yazdan family. This works out really well and is a good way to show the personality of all the main characters.

I couldn't put the book down once I started it. For one thing my husband and I have considered adoption ourselves, and therefore I had a personal interest in the book. But even if that hadn't been the case I would still have enjoyed it, because it is an incredibly charming book. The characters are complete with flaws and everything, they're people I know and love and I feel at home together with them.

A perfect comfort read about two families, how they work independently and together, and what it really means to be an American.
(Written for Armchair Interviews.)

Book List