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 afterThirty-five years in this country must finally come to terms with her outsidernessTwo families who would otherwise never have come together meet by chance at the Baltimore airportthe Donaldsons a very American couple and the Yazdans Maryams 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 intertwinedEven 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 wifes death suddenly all the values she cherishesher traditions her privacy her othernessare threatened Somehow this big American takes up so much space that the orderly boundaries of her life feel invadedA 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.
