UNEARTHING

Three months after Kyo Maclear s father dies in December 2018 she gets the result of a DNA test showing that she and the father who raised her are not biologically related Suddenly Maclear becomes a detective in her own life desperately seeking answers from her ailing mother whose memories and English are failing Maclear no longer speaks Japanese her mother s first language so she turns to her mother s second fluent tongue the wild and green language of soil seed leaf and mulch Can the humble act of tending a garden provide common ground for an inquisitive daughter and her complicated mother What role does storytelling play in unearthing the past and making sense of a life What gets planted and what gets buried Unearthing is a captivating and propulsive story of inheritance that goes far beyond heredity full of unflinching insights into grief loyalty and the relationship between mothers and daughters