Digging to America: A Novel

By Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler’s richest, most deeply searching novel–a story about what it is to be an American, and about Iranian-born Maryam Yazdan, who, after 35 years in this country, must finally come to terms with her “outsiderness.”

Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport – the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryam’s fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate: an “arrival party” that from then on is repeated every year as the two families become more and more deeply intertwined. Even Maryam is drawn in – up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by Bitsy Donaldson’s recently widowed father, all the values she cherishes – her traditions, her privacy, her otherness–are suddenly threatened.

A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that immerse us in the challenges of both sides of the American story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307375131

Reviews for Digging to America

[kebets_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Yazdans and the Donaldson’s have a chance meeting as they wait for the arrival of their new daughters from Korea. This begins a new friendship that continues for many years and intertwines the two very different American clans. The yearly “Arrival Party” becomes a snapshot into the changing lives of these families. Bitsy Donaldson and Ziba Yazdan couldn’t be more different, but each is striving to fit into the new mom niche these foreign daughters have created. Maryam Yazdan, the family matriarch, immigrated from Iran as a new bride. She is perfectly controlled, perfectly dressed and carefully American. Bitsy is a careless housekeeper but a fiesty granola hippy when it comes to her new daughter. As the years pass you get to hear a variety of voices as they deal with uncertainties and life in America. It comes to a head as Bitsy’s father begins to court Maryam and Bitsy adopts a new daughter from China. Life abruptly changes for all - bringing more questions and shaking what each thought they wanted in the world. One of Tyler’s best!!!

[dalzan_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Two families meet at the airport when they collect their adopted daughter arriving from Korea. One family (originally from Iran) try to keep up with the other (typical American). Understanding the others culture and they way they choose to bring up their children is sometimes a challenge. Easy reading and entertaining. No huge climax – a story of family relationships and bringing up children.

[emleemay · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

288 pages of absolutely no story, boring characters and just poor writing. The emphasis of this novel is on subtlety, if by that you mean that nothing actually happens then yes, that would be an accurate description.
Seriously, I finished each chapter and thought to myself: "so what actually happened there?" And the answer is nothing. This is a very boring book, I wasted a painful few weeks of my life trying to drag myself through it, I have to finish a book once I start it but I very nearly gave up with this one.
There are no interesting characters, not one I can feel any kind of endearing emotion towards... I always try to find something good to say about a novel, even the ones I really didn't like, but I can't think of anything good to say about this. I hated it.

[whirled_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What I like best about Anne Tyler is the way she lets the reader peer inside her characters' lives to understand the workings of a particular family or relationship. In this case, it's the all-American Donaldsons and the Iranian Yazdans, who meet by chance when they both pick up their adopted Korean daughters from the airport. Over the course of the next several years, through triumph and tragedy, the two families form a lasting and sometimes complicated bond. I particularly liked the way Tyler handled the issues of identity and belonging, which I assumed to be partly informed by the experiences of her late husband, an Iranian-American. Digging For America isn't Tyler's best novel, but it definitely has the insight, warmth and humour her fans have come to expect.

[luvlylibrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Listened to the NLS Talking Book version. The book is interested by comparing and contrasting different cultural beliefs. Two vastly different sets of parents adopt infants on the same day and end up forging lifelong friendships. The friendship's are not without tension as both sides struggle to understand with and navigate their way through various relationships. The adopted children are not focused on very much in the book. It is mainly the story of their parents and grandparents.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A chance meeting at an airport arrival gate leads to a cross-cultural friendship between two adoptive families. One family is typically American, and the other is Iranian American. Both families have adopted Korean babies who arrive on the same flight. Each year the Donaldsons and Yazdans celebrate their daughters' adoptions with an elaborate Arrival Party. Each year's party is viewed from the perspective of a different family member.This was my first Anne Tyler novel. I didn't know what to expect when I started the book, and it was a pleasant discovery for me. I identified with most of the characters. Like the Yazdans, I've lived in a culture as an outsider. Like Maryam, I found it was easier to become friends with other cultural outsiders, even when we didn't share the same cultural background. Like the Donaldsons, I've helplessly watched the decline of a parent and grandparents caused by cancer. As a child, I was part of a welcoming party for an adopted cousin. I know several families who have adopted internationally and/or inter-racially. Reading this book reminded me of those relationships and experiences and how they have enriched my life.Although I liked this book very much, I'm not sure it's one I'll read again. I think a lot of its impact came from the gradual revelations of character as the book progressed, as well as a few surprises along the way. I don't think a re-reading would have the same effect since I would know what's coming. Even though I won't be re-reading this one, I will be adding more of Tyler's work to my TBR list.

[citizenjoyce · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I first read this book about 3 years ago and liked it very much. On the reread for my book club by opinion has greatly decreased. Anne Tyler writes about the difficulty in adjustment - to each other, to family, to friends and to country. But by the end the reader is left wondering why a person works so hard to be an outsider. Tyler shows how hard it is for foreigners to adjust to America and that whether Americans welcome them, assist them, embrace their culture or try to encourage assimilation to the new culture they're doing the wrong thing. It seems in many instances this is true, but makes for a depressing and even, by the end, an annoying end.

[shelleyraec · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really liked the premise of this book - it was an interesting look at a microcosm of a multicultural society and identity, and how we all as Dave puts it "feel like we dont quite belong."I think the differences in the two families was handled well and the characters (with the exception of the husbands) were well drawn. The shift during the story from the focus on the girls and their mothers to begin with to the relationship between Dave and Maryam and Maryam in particular seemed a little odd and I felt a bit like the girls story and perhaps Ziba's didnt really finish as a result.I think there could have been two more effective separate books of the story.I found the first quarter of the book really intriguing but the middle third seemed quite repetitive - the story didnt really seem to move forward all that much, it picked up again during the last third.However I really did like the idea behind the book and think its a worthwhile read so I give it3 stars

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think I have read one of Anne Tyler's book before, maybe "Searching for Caleb" since I vaguely remember something about a fortune-teller. Since then I have occasionally read the blurbs on the back covers of her books when I have seen them in Waterstones, but I have never been keen enough to buy one (or even borrow it from the library).I only read this because it was picked for my on-line book club's February / March read and I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I enjoyed it way more than I had expected. It is the story of two families who become friends after picking up their newly adopted Korean daughters at Baltimore the airport at the same time, one a family of middle-class liberals and the other a family of Iranian immigrants. Each year the families hold a joint Arrival Day party to commemorate the day that Susan Yazdan (formerly Sooki) and Jin-Ho Dickinson-Donaldson became part of their families, attended by their extended families.I liked how the tale was told from multiple points of view so that I got to know both families, seeing them from both the inside and the outside. It starts with Susan's grandmother Maryam, who resents the Donaldson's and especially Jin-Ho's right-on mother Bitsy for thinking that they are always right about everything, but later on you realise that Maryam is not exactly perfect herself, being prickly and quite hypocritical, moaning about Dave showing an interest in Iranian fairly tales when it was Maryam who brought up the subject, and resenting her cousin's American husband for embracing all things Iranian.

[nancychase · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thought that Anne Tyler created a super story in “Digging to America” The book portrayed some of the hidden snares that are involved with the book’s doptive families as they go about adopting their Korean daughters The story takes place in Baltimore, with two families from different cultures; a suburban Caucasian family and a Iranian family. These two families become the focus of the book since both have adopted a daughter from Korea. It’s an interesting story and there lots of humorous discussions. Highly recommend.

[reginar_447079 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5 Stars. I listedn to this book on audio and "read" it for book club. I honestly am not sure how to rate this book. I was often irritated at the cliched use of stereotypes and the way Ms. Tyler did not know her characters but she instead relied on stereotypes to draw and paint her characters personalities. However, by the end I cared emotionally about the characters, so I am rating it up 1 star than what I had intended to give the book. The portrayal of death, marriage relationships, and mourning was very touching. I thought Ms. Tyler's portrayal of parenting to be really tired and irritating. But despite this, there were several scenes that either moved me emotionally or made me laugh.My main issue with this story is that I really dislike using stereotypes to make fun of people or to convey a certain message. I felt that Ms. Tyler was doing this with several of her characters, Bitsy in particular, and it really felt awkward and uncomfortable to me. I have alot of other thoughts about this book, I may add them later or just save them for book club meeting.

[kaebs · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I thought this book was going to be about two Vietnamese babies/girls growing up in the US after being adopted. Well, it was only on the periphery about them. Instead it was also about their adopted parents, grandparents and aunties; and about two families trying to outdo each other with parties. Really lacked a solid story line. Every time I got into a character the story would be dropped and another focus made elsewhere. I found this very annoying. I don't recommend this book at all. Basically I found it to be a 'nothing book'. It was not enjoyable to read and left me with no lasting impressions.

[grislib · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a great book!

[mzonderm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[thevoice1208 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was a quick read with some well defined characters. I'm not a big fan of Tyler's books so I can't compare it to others I've read.To me the main thread was the conflict between being yourself and trying to be someone you are not.

[dreamreader_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

There was a time when the release of a new Anne Tyler or John Irving novel made my heart race with anticipation. However, her more recent works - Ladder of Years, Back When We Were Grownups, Amateur Marriage - fade in memory as an amorphous mass of sameness, while his have degenerated into aimless ramblings that try the patience of his staunchest fans. Sad to see one's favorites lose their touch. With an entirely new array of characters, Digging to America held so much potential, but sadly became just something to fill the reading void while waiting for a much more promising work by a new favorite, Julia Glass. We are given a modicum of back-story for Sami & Ziba, and for Bitsy & Brad. Maryam is the central character, and yet she, too, despite Tyler's effort at character development, remains largely an enigma. The complexity of her budding romance with Dave is skimmed oh-so lightly, while a drawn-out farewell to a baby's binkies is detailed ad nauseam. And the ending just feels pasted on like a Lifetime movie approaching its time limit. Perhaps Ms. Tyler, like Mr. Irving, has simply exhausted her reservoir of talent. In the hands of a more energetic writer, Digging to America could have struck gold.

[jepeters333 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Two families adopt baby girls from Korea. They meet at the airport and end up becoming friends.

[janismack · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this book. It was easy to read and description of the characters were good. At first I thought it was the story of the two adopted girls from Korea but it was about the mother and father of the parents who adopted the kids. A good diversion.

[phoebesmum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A story of two quite different couples who happen both to adopt Korean orphans at the same time; it's about family, and friendship, and food, and love, and loss, and cultural identity, and, for that matter, it's about pride and about prejudice – but mostly it's about people, and it's beautiful.

[msbaba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[curlycurrie_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this a little slow to start with, though this probably wasn't helped by the fact I didn't have chance to have a good long sitting at it. However, I started to warm to the characters and found that Anne Tyler was looking at the lives of not only the children and their immigration but also to that of Maryam. It showed how difficult some people find it to move country and contrasted different methods of coping with a massive cultural change. These themes didn't appear to me until quite a way into the book. I loved the ending.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Anne Tyler consistently writes good stories well. Two families meet at the airport while picking up their Korean infants for adoption, and thus begins a special relationship which lasts a lifetime. It is the story of sharing experiences, sharing the riches of varied ethnic backgrounds, and sharing the joys and sorrows which life throws at everyone regardless of ethnicity. So, the reader digs in and discovers some of the wonderful aspects of life in America. Nice story, nice writing, nice ending!

[sandra.k.heinzman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was my first Anne Tyler book and I enjoyed it. I chose it because it dealt with foreign adoptions, which I relate to. It was well written and believable. Recommend!

[jopearson56 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

2008 All Iowa Reads choice; I had to read it since I had offered to lead a book discussion about book at work. (Figured I knew how that would turn out based on past book discussions at a past job, but anyway ...) I didn't mind reading it, I like to read the All Iowa Reads books, still regret missing last years. The first Anne Tyler I've read, and I hear it is different from her other stuff, but I enjoyed this one. i liked the writing style a lot, so would be interested in trying another of her books to see. This was about two families who adoped Korena babies, one American and one Iranian immigrants, and how they came to be friends based on their daughters' cultural backgrounds and on the fact that they were in airport at same time to pick up babies. Turned out to be a romance, too, which was nice. I liked the ideas about "fitting in,' worth thinking about.

[mjlivi · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I've really enjoyed Anne Tyler's books in the past, and this mines basically the same territory - family, fitting in, growing old. As always, there's not much plot, there are shifting perspectives and the writing is solid. But this time around it all just really bored me - I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters or what happened to them and was just glad to finish it.

[mumoftheanimals · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Two families - one 'traditional' US, the other, successful 2nd generation immigrants, adopt from China and the babies arrive on the same plane. The book is about how the families approach a multi-tude of issues from keeping up with the Jones, infertility, overses adoption and so on. I am an adopted mother and a friend is adopted. The book 'talked' to neither of us. It was interesting and sometimes funny but not greatly insightful.

[autumnesf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting book about two families that adopt from Korea (and later one from China) that become friends. One of the families is your average middle class American and the other family is made up of immigrant Iranians. The thing that brings the families together is meeting at the airport when the Korean adoptee's are delivered to their new families, and one family makes it a point to start a relationship and celebrate "Arrival Day" for the girls. As adoptive parents, you will recognize the familiar clashes in child raising practices between the two families (working vs. non-working mothers, etc.) and seeing how the girls assimilate into their new families. Also, you get a look at how the Iranian immigrants adapt to life in America and how some always feel very much like an "other" instead of fitting in. That aspect is interesting as the adoptee's will also deal with this in some form as they grow up. I wonder if the Iranian parents will be more in-tune to those feelings when the children are older?

[brsquilt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Iraian/American families adopt Korean girls

[co_coyote · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My father passed away a couple of weeks ago, after a long illness. I was reading a book about parasitology at the time, and that seemed a little insensitive to take to a funeral. So I looked around for something more appropriate, for something having to do with families and quirky family relationships. In my mind, there is only one author who consistently fills that niche: Anne Tyler. Digging to America is the latest in a long line of her excellent books, any of which I would recommend. And, as I expected, my eyes misted over in the first five pages as I was introduced to Jin-Ho and Sooki, soon to be known as Susan, two Korean babies being adopted by an American and Iranian family, repectively. This is a warm, good-hearted story of how two very different families, thrown together accidentally, end up making a difference in each others lives. Most enjoyable, and the kind of book that always makes me remember what is important in life.

[mrstreme · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Digging to America, Anne Tyler continued her storytelling mastery of family relationships – but added a new twist. This story focused on two families, the Donaldsons and the Yadzans, who adopted girls from Korea. The Donaldsons represented the “typical” American family while the Yazdans represented a “typical” Iranian-American family. The couples became friends, and this story followed their lives during their first several years as new parents.The story meandered around the ups and downs of families: the best way to raise children, how to deal with the loss of a family member and what happens when a parent becomes ill. Tyler also examined the added dimension of being adoptive parents, especially of foreign-born children. However, the most interesting aspect of Digging to America was the exploration of what it means to be an “American family” and equally important, what it means to be an American. Compelling characterization – especially of Bitsy Donaldson, the overbearing mother of Jin-Ho, and Maryam Yazdan, the traditional Iranian grandmother – elucidated the challenges these families encountered as they learned about each other.In my opinion, you have to like the soft whisper of Anne Tyler to appreciate the style of this book. I noticed other reviewers commented that Digging to America lacked conflict, an advanced plot or multi-dimensional characters. I can see how one could make these conclusions. However, I would argue these elements are there – just wrapped in Tyler’s subtle style. By the end of the book, I was thinking about what it means to be an American and how easy it is to become cocooned in your own culture. Digging to America was not one of Tyler’s best, but it certainly was not her worst. I would encourage fans of Anne Tyler to give this one a try.