Tyler is superbly alive to the complexities of emotion thrown up by the clash of cultures. The Donaldsons, heavy-footedly determined not to trample on cultural sensitivities, are never more deeply patronising to the Yazduns than when they are being sincerely appreciative of their Iranian culture; the younger Yazduns, sincerely emulous of the American way of life, mix admiration with an undertow of gentle resentment. Sami’s mother, Maryam, however, resists assimilation, superior and aloof. Her self-containment is both admirable and obstinately self-defeating. With another novelist, one might be surprised to find the widowed grandmother absorbing so much narrative attention; but Tyler is always alert to the dramas of ‘unregarded age’.
Digging for America is another superb novel, warm-hearted and funny, but bruised by frustration. In Tyler’s vision of the world, we cannot dig to America, cannot remake ourselves, or others, by willing it. Yet the fact that our free will is so bounded — we cannot escape from family, upbringing and nationality — is what makes us belong to the human race. Freedom would be belonging nowhere, and intolerable loneliness.
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