Two new fiction titles
by Maxine
Anne Tyler's latest book, Digging to America has its typical cast of quirky characters including Bitsy McDonald, newly adoptive mom of Jin-Ho who has just arrived from Korea. A bit self-righteous but well meaning, Bitsy initiates a friendship with an Iranian couple who are picking up their daughter, Susan, at the airport at the same time. The two couples and their extended families meet every year for an anniversary party to celebrate the girls' arrival day. The story is not only about the adjustment of the girls but the difficulties of assimilation for any immigrant. Maryam, Susan's grandmother and frequent caretaker, exemplies this predicament as she tries to preserve her own cultural traditions in the midst of the americanization of the children.
Robert Hellenga, author of the acclaimed The Sixteen Pleasures, gives us another treasure in his latest, Philosophy Made Simple. Rudy gives up his successful business in Chicago and buys an avocado farm in Texas. In the meantime, one of his daughters is planning her wedding to an Indian man who is a student of philosophy (in Ann Arbor, no less). Rudy prepares for the wedding at his farm where his future son-in- law's family converges. Add to this mix an elephant named Norma Jean who paints, a Mexican gentleman farmer who introduces Rudy to the concept of "cultural holidays" across the border and Rudy's ruminations on philosophy. Hellenga masterfully pulls these threads together to create a
a story that makes you laugh about the absurdities of life while still experiencing it fully.
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