Anne Tyler, Digging to America

Digging to America

Anne Tyler

Knopf, May 2006, $24.95

ISBN 0307263940

On August 15, 1997 at the Baltimore airport, two couples each wait for the arrival of their newly adopted Korean infants. Bitsy and Brad Dickinson-Donaldson are openly ecstatic over their tiny Jin-Ho, while a more subdued but just as elated Sami and Ziba Yazdan are exhilarated over their Sookie, who they rename Susan. In the waiting room, Bitsy and Brad host a baby shower gala with their family horde, while the Yazdans only have his Iranian mother Maryam with them. Still this euphoric connection leads to a strong friendship between Bitsy and Brad Donaldson with Sami and Ziba.

The extroverted Bitsy establishes an annual gala to celebrate Arrival Day. She and Ziba become especially close, but she fails in her efforts to reach out to Maryam, who detests the ugly Americans, though she has been here for decades arriving as a teenage bride immigrant, whose son was born here and husband died here. She still feels like an outsider in the United States, but unwelcome in Iran. That suddenly changes when Bitsy's widower father Dave makes clear his intentions towards her that panic and exhilarate Maryam.

DIGGING TO AMERICA is a great character study that digs deep into the adopting parents, yet they, Dave and their respective children are secondary protagonists to the tale's prime player Maryam. Readers will appreciate the support cast that includes the brashness of Bitsy; the tenderness of Brad towards his two women; the friendliness of Dave somewhat tamped by his grief for his wife and his need for Maryam; Sami's aloofness toward Iran and America that frustrates his mom; Ziba's exuberance towards the American dream for her baby. However, Maryam remains the focus, as no one before Dave has gotten inside her perimeter, but he wonders if she will let him remain there. Anne Tyler provides a powerful contemporary tale that looks deep into the Americanization of Maryam that is worth reading.