Digging to America - Hardcover

Tyler, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 070118034X ISBN 13: 9780701180348

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2006

Synopsis

It was Friday, August 15th, 1997. The night the girls arrived. Two tiny Korean babies are delivered to Baltimore to two families who have no more in common than this. First, there are the Donaldsons, decent Brad and homespun, tenacious Bitsy (with her 'more organic than thou' airs, who believes fervently that life can always be improved), two full sets of grandparents and a host of big-boned, confident relatives, taking delivery with characteristic American razzmatazz. Then there are the Yazdans, pretty, nervous Ziba (her family 'only one generation removed from the bazaar') and carefully assimilated Sami, with his elegant, elusive Iranian-born widowed mother Maryam, the grandmother-to-be, receiving their little bundle with wondering discretion. Every year, on the anniversary of 'Arrival Day', their two extended families celebrate together, with more and more elaborately competitive parties, as tiny, delicate Susan, wholesome, stocky Jin-ho, and later, her new little sister Xiu-Mei, take roots, become American...While Maryam, the optimistic pessimist, confident that if things go wrong - as well they may - she will manage as she has before, contrarily preserves her 'outsider' status, as if to prove that, despite her passport, she is only a guest in this bewildering country. Full of achingly hilarious moments (Xiu-Mei's 'pacifier' party is worthy of 'The Simpsons') and toe-curling misunderstandings, "Digging to America" is a novel with a deceptively small domestic canvas, and subtly large themes - it's about belonging and otherness, about insiders and outsiders, pride and prejudice, young love and unexpected old love, families and the impossibility of ever getting it right, and about striving for connection and goodness against all the odds...And, the end catches you by the throat, ambushes your emotions when you least expect it, as only Tyler can.

About this title

Review:

"A wonderfully funny, acutely observant and very moving story from Anne Tyler" -- Supernanny

"Anne Tyler is at her best in Digging to America’. This is a witty, imaginative exploration ..." -- Metro Thursday rvd by Nina Caplan

"Digging to America is another superb novel, warm-hearted and funny..." -- The Spectator: Caroline Moore

"The novel has a knock-out ending... As ever, Anne Tyler has the ability to keep you guessing." -- The Saturday Herald: Harry Reid

"Written with wonderful insight and slow-burn humour...it’s rich with family entanglements and allegiances" -- Good Housekeeping.

"Wry, poignant and achingly funny" -- Eve

"so achingly truthful, so achingly funny, so sad and so real that you can only marvel..." -- Mail on Friday rvd by Elizabeth Buchan

"...a pure storyteller...Tyler’s fiction has always danced dangerously close to being a paean to the so-called simple life." -- Scotland on Sunday

We love Digging to America "A small exquisitiely painted canvas. Don’t miss" -- Woman & Home

`comically touching saga' -- Independent Christmas Books:

From the Publisher:

Another gem from the incomparable Anne Tyler, sparkling with diamond-sharp wit and observation, glowing with the warmth of her characters’ multifaceted, flawed, resilient humanity.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 070118034X
• ISBN 13: 9780701180348
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288