"She had always been outside [the culture]. Somehow, for no reason she could name, she had never felt at home in her own country or anywhere else, which was probably why her three best friends were foreigners. [. . .] Maryam stood in the kitchen doorway with a salad bowl in her hands and wondered if every decision she had ever made had been geared toward preserving her outsiderness."

When I studied literature in college, one of my professors spent a great deal of time discussing a prominent theme in our reading: otherness. From early literature to Othello to this modern novel by Anne Tyler, otherness (outsider status) has been a preoccupation for writers and readers. In a country like the United States, where so many cultures are intertwined, I suspect that our otherness—whatever it is based upon—is a cross carefully constructed by ourselves, enforced with decreasing frequency by society and more by our own insecurities. That otherness can be ethnicity, sexuality, gender, religion, biological ties, whatever.

Tyler looks at this idea from many different perspectives in her latest novel, Digging to America. The Maryam of the opening quote is one adoptive grandparent of a pair of Korean girls brought to two very different couples in the same airport in 1999. Struck by the coincidence and pleased to share their joy with another family, the Dickenson-Donaldsons remain in touch with the Yazdans, reliving the girls’ "arrival day" each year with a combined party. The White Dickenson-Donaldsons (Bitsy and Brad) carefully attempt to preserve the cultural heritage of their new daughter, often going to laughable extremes, while Ziba and Sami Yazdan, a younger Iranian-American couple, have a more Americanized approach. Things become even more complicated when Bitsy’s recently widowed father courts Maryam, Sami’s widowed mother.

What I like about this novel more so than many of Tyler’s other novels is that the characters are approachable, if flawed. In some of her previous works, Tyler’s characters were so conscientiously created as imperfect beings that I could not connect with them at all. I always appreciated her writing skills, but failed to enjoy myself as thoroughly as I did reading Digging.

Personally, I recall the difficulties my own parents had adopting my brother, Daniel. People working in or visiting the CAMP Rehoboth courtyard over the July 4th, 1999 holiday still shudder when they hear Damien—I mean Daniel’s!—name. Originally from Russia, Danny had only been with my parents for nine months or so when they decided to take an adults-only 10-day vacation to Mexico. Somehow, I was volunteered for the position of babysitter for the 4 year-old. He barely recognized English, and he didn’t know me at all since they live in Wisconsin and I moved back to the east coast shortly after his arrival.

I soon found out why they needed a break. He slugged me in the face the first day I had him out on the beach. The little bugger brought tears to my eyes. I instinctively (and frighteningly) channeled the voice my mother had used on me at my worst moments: a low, growling, clenched-teeth slurring of various threats and abstract promises of future maiming. Needless to say, my parents were "unreachable" at their Mexican all-inclusive resort, so Danny and I (and two hired teenagers) bunked down in my incredibly small rented room for the remainder of his week. I actually begged Lori Kline to baby-sit him on my day off while I ran the café. Much to her future dismay, she agreed. Danny was farmed out to others as well. In fact, I’m ashamed to admit that sometimes I really didn’t know whose turn it was to watch him; at one point, a complete stranger was dragged up the courtyard by Danny. He always found his way back.

Somehow, we all survived (although I haven’t asked for a favor since from anyone in Rehoboth). Seven years later, my mother frequently laments that she hasn’t gone on another trip without children since. I remind her not so gently that it was she, not I, that wanted another child when most of her friends were waving college students good-bye through their double-latched front door’s window.

Seriously, though, Tyler’s book tackles a multi-faceted issue with humor and honesty. It is interesting to me that the two adopted girls (the book follows the families for several years) seem the least aware of their otherness. Instead, it is the adults that struggle to fit in or, conversely, cling to their differences.

There is a certain safety in our familiarity with our own isolation. Sometimes it is just easier to be alone than to dance the language of complex relationships. When you factor in the social and cultural graces we pile on our interactions with others, you may find that those sometimes-necessary constructions can mask our true feelings and create hurt feelings or misunderstandings.

Tyler’s main characters certainly end up in that position. The overbearing political correctness of Bitsy alienates some members of the Yazdan family, while the Yazdan grandmother alienates Bitsy’s father for the same reasons. Somehow, though, Tyler picks up their pieces and reconstructs a less-perfect superficially but much wiser fundamentally family.