Emily May's Reviews > Dig

"Wish I could have raised you in a place where the history books don't lie, but pretty much all history books lie."

I broke my usual habit of reading books in a couple of days with Dig. I actually spent over a week dipping in and out of it while my family visited. And, strangely, I think it was the right decision for this book. It's a tough read in multiple ways. It's an uncomfortable, ugly read about multi-generational racism and the far-reaching consequences of hate and abuse - among other things - and it's also a typical mind-bendy and weird A.S. King novel.

I think taking my time with it helped me unpack all the layers of the story. And there are many.

It starts out very odd. The book moves between a large cast of characters, all living their own seemingly unrelated lives, with suggested elements of magical realism. This is A.S. King, so she doesn't shy away from dark subjects, and each character is dealing with their own problems or trauma. What makes it especially strange is that some of the characters are called things like "The Freak" and "The Shoveler". It is an odd choice, but I promise that it does all eventually come together.

The weird, disorientating style is difficult to read at first, but when I got into the book, I couldn't put it down. When the bigger picture started to form, I saw what the author was doing. And it was really fucking impressive.

"Thing is," he says, "we can run around the planet a hundred times and we're still who we are."

There's so much going on here and it's hard to know exactly what to reveal. The stories in here are all very different, the characters' voices all distinct, yet they are all about fraught relationships between parents and children. Loretta lives in a wagon with her mother and abusive father; The Shoveler, on the other hand, has never known his father and he takes jobs after school to support himself and his mother; CanIHelpYou?'s friendship/romance is threatened by her mother's bigotry.

I found one of the book's most poignant and heartbreaking moments to be when a friendship is ruined by a discovery that changes everything. I won't ruin it. But those WRONG WORDS cut me deep. I feel like I should have seen it coming.

Dig is a book of many metaphors, the title also being one. The process of reading it is a journey to the root of an old issue, a poisonous seed planted decades ago that is still infecting the lives and minds of people today. To speak as plainly as possible (and that's not easy with this book), it is a book about how the hatred sown by parents and grandparents has embedded itself in the lives of young Americans today.

An utterly weird, disturbing and original novel.

CW: Racism, misogyny, homophobic slurs, abuse.

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