Digging to America

Digging to America by Anne Tyler

Category: Fiction Grade: B

I tend to automatically pick up new Anne Tyler books. She's a great who's forte is character development. Her books are always pleasant reads. The ultimate problem with most of her books is that not much happens. In her latest, Digging to America, Tyler follows two families who adopt Korean infant girls. Taking place in the days before adoptive parents had to travel to meet their new children in foreign countries, the two families end up meeting the same flight to pick up their new daughters. Their chance meeting at the airport develops in to an ever closer, if unlikely, friendship.

The Donaldson family is an almost comical uber-American family. Led by the adopting mother Bitsy, a pushy and domineering woman, the Donaldson's turn out at the airport in force. The major family members are wearing buttons that say "mother", "father", "grandmother", etc. and what seems like 40 friends and family are standing around waiting for the flight with signs, gifts and cameras. At the edge of the crowd, the Yazdans, just mother, father and grandmother stand quietly waiting for their daughter. The Yazdans are Iranian-Americans - father born in the U.S. but mother and grandmother both born in Iran under the Shah.

The book then follows the two families over the course of some 6 or 8 years as the girls grow up. Bitsy pulls the two families together - mostly around "Arrival Day", an annual celebration of the day the girls arrive in the U.S. Bitsy strains to ensure that her daughter, Jin-Ho, retains her Korean culture while the Yazdans work just as hard to make sure that their daughter, Susan, is American through and through. Its not quite clear why the friendship develops. The two girls never particularly care for each other but Bitsy's pushiness seems to be reason enough. The large extended families on both sides get pulled in to the story.

You'd think, with all of this in the mix, that there'd be a plot in here somewhere, but I never did find it. Because of Tyler's talents, the reader pays attention to the characters and even cares about what happens to them, if anything ever did. All-in-all its a decent and relaxing read. Just don't expect to jump up and down with the excitement of the story's action.