★“King’s narrative concerns are racism, patriarchy, colonialism, white privilege, and the ingrained systems that perpetuate them. . . . [Dig] will speak profoundly to a generation of young people who are waking up to the societal sins of the past and working toward a more equitable future.”—Horn Book, starred review
“I’ve never understood white people who can’t admit they’re white. I mean, white isn’t just a color. And maybe that’s the problem for them. White is a passport. It’s a ticket.”
Five estranged cousins are lost in a maze of their family’s tangled secrets. Their grandparents, former potato farmers Gottfried and Marla Hemmings, managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions and now they sit atop a million-dollar bank account—wealth they’ve refused to pass on to their adult children or their five teenage grandchildren. “Because we want them to thrive,” Marla always says.
But for the Hemmings cousins, “thriving” feels a lot like slowly dying of a poison they started taking the moment they were born. As the rot beneath the surface of the Hemmings’ white suburban respectability destroys the family from within, the cousins find their ways back to one another, just in time to uncover the terrible cost of maintaining the family name.
With her inimitable surrealism, award winner A.S. King exposes how a toxic culture of polite white supremacy tears a family apart and how one determined generation can dig its way out.
I finished reading Dig by A.S.King the other day and I still can’t figure out what I want to say about it.
I part hated it (some of the characters are truly disturbing and examples of the worst parts of humanity) and I part loved it (there were three characters I connected with and the last quarter of the book made up for the first three quarters).
It is skillfully written and tackles some dark stuff. I feel like it’s the kind of novel that should be read and dissected in a high school English class. King is a phenomenal writer and isn’t afraid to get dark with it.
The story jumps between six characters, with each short chapter alternating the POV. The jumps never get confusing, it is rest-bite from the not-likable to the likable characters. It created a balance and pushed the story along.
This is not a light read, it tackles: terminal illness, poverty, physical & sexual abuse, parental neglect, racism, white privilege and the danger of family legacy.
Dig is Intense and at times it gets real dark! It’ll make you uncomfortable, and if it doesn’t, there is something wrong with you. But the journey that is reading this book is worth it in the end.
Dig is a story about the way our actions tunnel down and affect those around us, generation after generation. A story about digging our way out from under our past and moving forward to better future.
