Every year, on the anniversary of ‘Arrival Day’ their two extended families celebrate together, with more and more elaborately competitive parties, as tiny, delicate Susan, wholesome, stocky Jin-ho and, later, her new little sister Xiu-Mei, take roots, become American. Then there are the Yazdans, pretty, nervous Ziba (her family ‘only one generation removed from the bazaar’) and carefully assimilated Sami, with his elegant, elusive Iranian-born widowed mother Maryam, the grandmother-to-be, receiving their little bundle with wondering discretion. First there are the Donaldsons, decent Brad and homespun, tenacious Bitsy (with her ‘more organic than thou’ airs, who believes fervently that life can always be improved), two full sets of grandparents and a host of big-boned, confident relatives, taking delivery with characteristic American razzmatazz. Two tiny Korean babies are delivered to Baltimore to two families who have no more in common than this. Somehow this big American takes up so much space that the orderly boundaries of her life feel invaded.Ī 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.Friday August 15th, 1997. 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. 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.Įven independent-minded Maryam is drawn in. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. 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. Thirty-five years in this country must finally come to terms with her “outsiderness.”
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
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