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And should that sound as if it's spoken from experience, I admit that I read Digging to America with special sympathy. I thought of my own family, now so divided by opposing cultures and beliefs, still loving each other in spite of all, but for how long? Over how many generations? There are so many ways to separate people, all kinds of tools the world uses to carve us into groups that loathe and distrust each other.

How encouraging it is to imagine that two clans of strangers really could meet at an airport one day and form a friendship strong enough to endure small annoyances and even grand disappointments—a friendship based on the families' love for two children adopted from the other side of the world. Such is the catharsis of fiction, too seldom mirrored in the real world.

Betty Smartt Carter is a novelist living in Alabama.

Copyright © 2006 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

Books & Culture Corner and Books & Culture's Book of the Week, from Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture: A Christian Review (want a free trial issue?), appears regularly on Tuesdays at Christianity Today. Earlier editions include:

Live Like You Are Dying | Finding wisdom in wilderness. (Aug. 15, 2006)

Alchemy in Philadelphia | Revising the history of the "Scientific Revolution." (Aug. 1, 2006)

Not the Wheel Thing | A history of the Tour de France. (Aug. 1, 2006)

Welcoming Resurrection | A volume of new poems from Luci Shaw. July 18, 2006)

Truth, Justice, and … | Some critics of Superman Returns are more blinkered than Lex Luthor. (July 11, 2006)

Dining Dilemmas | How shall we then eat? (June 27, 2006)

Incorrigibly Bookish | Michael Dirda on reading and life. (June 20, 2006)

The Not-So-Evil Empire | A report on The Historical Society's conference earlier this month. (June 13, 2006)

Very Important Fiction | The Gospel according to The New York Times Book Review. (May 23, 2006)

Back to the Garden | Digging in the dirt as spiritual formation. (May 16, 2006)

Words Made Flesh | Calvin College's 2006 Festival of Faith & Writing. (April 25, 2006)

Betrayed Again | The Gospel of Judas Roadshow. (April 18, 2006)

American Theocrat | Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic political ambitions, and the evangelical pawns. (April 11, 2006)

Was George Washington a Christian? | A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. (April 4, 2006)

The Mystery of the Numbers | B&C's annual baseball preview, 2006 edition. (March 21, 2006)

Passionately Ambivalent | Christians in the art world. (Feb. 14, 2006)

For book lovers, our 2006 CT book awards are available online, along with our book awards for 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, and 1997, as well as our Books of the Twentieth Century. For other coverage or reviews, see our Books archive and the weekly Books & Culture Corner.

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August (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50