Anne Tyler. (2007). Digging to America: A Novel. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Anne Tyler. 2007. Digging to America: A Novel. Books on Tape.

Anne Tyler, Digging to America: A Novel. Books on Tape, 2007.

Anne Tyler. Digging to America: A Novel. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2007.

OverDrive Product Record

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Tyler, Anne
   • bioText: Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is her 17th novel. Her 11th, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. A member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, she lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
   • name: Anne Tyler
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2007-08-07T00:00:00-04:00

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title

Digging to America

fullDescription

In what is perhaps her richest and most deeply searching novel, Anne Tyler gives us a story about what it is to be an American, and about Maryam Yazdan, who after
Thirty-five 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 American wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate with an “arrival party,” an event that is repeated every year as the two families become more deeply intertwined.
Even independent-minded Maryam is drawn in. But only up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by one of the Donaldson clan, a good-hearted man of her vintage, recently widowed and still recovering from his wife’s death, suddenly all the values she cherishes—her traditions, her privacy, her otherness—are threatened. Somehow this big American takes up so much space that the orderly boundaries of her life feel invaded.
A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that cast a penetrating light on the American way as seen from two perspectives, those who are born here and those who are still struggling to fit in.

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1. • value: Grade 4
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1. • premium: False
   • source: Library Journal (starred review)
   • content:

     "The appearance of a new novel by Anne Tyler is like the arrival of an old friend . . . With her 17th novel, Tyler has delivered something startlingly fresh while retaining everything we love about her work . . . Her success at portraying culture clash and the complex longings and resentments of those new to America confirms what we knew, or should have known, all along: There's nothing small about Tyler's world, nothing precious about her attention to the hopes and fears of ordinary people."--Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World"Ms. Tyler deserves her reputation as a master of the fine threads of human relationships. The barely registered slights, fleeting intuitions and shivers of pity that pass between these characters are a pleasure to behold." --Tara Gallagher, The Wall Street Journal"Anne Tyler has written 17 novels and you only wish for more. Her newest, Digging to America, is wonderfully wry, yet intimately involving. There's a definite sense of loss when it's over and done." --Sheryl Connelly, New York Daily News "Tyler encompasses the collision of cultures without losing her sharp focus on the daily dramas of modern family life in her 17th novel . . . [A] touching, humorous story."--Publishers Weekly"Tyler creates many blissful moments of high emotion and keen humor while broaching hard truths about cultural differences, communication breakdowns, and family configurations. This deeply human tale of valiantly improvised lives is one of Tyler's best."--Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)"The veteran novelist extends her range without losing her essence in this tale of two families drawn together by their adopted daughters despite the friction created by their very different personalities and ethnicities . . . The ensuing culture clash enriches Tyler's narrative without diminishing her skills as an engaging storyteller and delicate analyst of personality . . . Readers will hope that these flawed, lovable people will find happiness, but they won't be sure until the final page, so deftly has the author balanced the forces that keep us apart against those that bring us together. Vintage Tyler, with enough fresh, new touches to earn her the next generation of fans."--Kirkus Reviews"The author's 17th novel exemplifies her skill at depicting seemingly quiet and unremarkable lives with sympathy and humor . . . A touching, well-crafted tale of friendship, families, and what it means to be an American."

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content: Anne Tyler illuminates what it means to be an American. Two families, the Yazdans, originally of Iran, and the Donaldsons, of Baltimore, have each adopted a girl child from Korea. When the babies arrive on the same plane, the families' lives become intertwined. Blair Brown does a stellar job with the accents of the Yazdan clan, changing the intonations with each generation and with the time each character has been in the country. She is sensitive to the cultural subtleties of language and custom, modulating her voice to allow for brashness or modesty. Tyler's simple plot is enriched by details of family life and food, and even more so by Brown's clever narration. B.H.B. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     September 4, 2006
     Blair Brown is one of those rare performers who can capture an author's voice to perfection. She's had plenty of practice performing audiobooks, including Linda Fairstein's Death Dance
     . Her vibrant reading of Digging
     manifests her outstanding talent as she moves lightly and briskly through the narrative, pausing ever so slightly before Tyler's clever punch lines for added effect. Brown makes this wry satire about the adoption of foreign babies so laugh-out-loud funny that standup comics could study her timing. Both adults and children are played to perfection. Brown's enactment of Iranian immigrant Maryam Yazdan and Ziba, her daughter-in-law, is amazing in her accurate reproduction of the soft and liquid Farsi vowels. In contrast, American-born Sami, Maryam's son, speaks like the prototypical Easterner. Brown remembers that the children of immigrants sound like their peers, not their parents. This hilarious audiobook actually improves a fine novel. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 27).

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 27, 2006
     Tyler (Breathing Lessons
     ) encompasses the collision of cultures without losing her sharp focus on the daily dramas of modern family life in her 17th novel. When Bitsy and Brad Donaldson and Sami and Ziba Yazdan both adopt Korean infant girls, their chance encounter at the Baltimore airport the day their daughters arrive marks the start of a long, intense if sometimes awkward friendship. Sami's mother, Maryam Yazdan, who carefully preserves her exotic "outsiderness" despite having emigrated from Iran almost 40 years earlier, is frequently perplexed by her son and daughter-in-law's ongoing relationship with the loud, opinionated, unapologetically American Donaldsons. When Bitsy's recently widowed father, Dave, endearingly falls in love with Maryam, she must come to terms with what it means to be part of a culture and a country. Stretching from the babies' arrival in 1997 until 2004, the novel is punctuated by each year's Arrival Party, a tradition manufactured and comically upheld by Bitsy; the annual festivities gradually reveal the families' evolving connections. Though the novel's perspective shifts among characters, Maryam is at the narrative and emotional heart of the touching, humorous story, as she reluctantly realizes that there may be a place in her heart for new friends, new loves and her new country after all.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 1, 2007
     At a point when foreign adoptions are being contested and immigration continues to be problematic, Tyler seems to once again have her finger on the pulse of America. Two families meet at the airport as they await the arrival of their Korean-born daughters. The Iranian American Yazdans immediately set about Americanizing their daughter, while the Donaldsons do everything to help their child keep her Korean heritage. Leaning on each other for support as their daughters grow, these families have all the quirks one expects from Tyler's novelsincluding love to be found in the place one least expects it. When love becomes conflict, when a second adopted daughter fails to live up to the perfection of the first, we see mothers clinging even more tightly to roots that can only be severed and causing what in the hands of a lesser novelist would be an irrevocable rift. This might not be Tyler at her best (e.g.The Accidental Tourist or the more recentBreathing Lessons ), but listening to even a subdued Tyler is just plain fun, and Blair Brown is the perfect reader. For all collections.Rochelle Ratner, formerly with Soho Weekly News, New York

     Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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In what is perhaps her richest and most deeply searching novel, Anne Tyler gives us a story about what it is to be an American, and about Maryam Yazdan, who after
Thirty-five 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 American wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate with an “arrival party,” an event that is repeated every year as the two families become more deeply intertwined.
Even independent-minded Maryam is drawn in. But only up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by one of the Donaldson clan, a good-hearted man of her...

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