Unearthing

A gripping and emotionally eloquent memoir about a family secret revealed by a DNA test, the lessons learned in its aftermath, and the transformative possibilities of growing plants

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I wanted my mother's story. I wanted a tale that could put my world back together

Three months after Kyo Maclear's father dies, a DNA test reveals that they were not biologically related. All at once Kyo's mother becomes unknown to her; she has a big story to tell, the story of a secret buried for half a century, but her memories are fading. Words are failing them both, so she looks to gardening - her mother's second fluent tongue - to bridge the gap between them.

Unearthing is written in the wild green language of soil, seed, leaf and mulch. A memoir of inheritance that goes far beyond heredity, this is the story of what happens when we give up the weeded and pruned plots of our family histories and open ourselves up to a more expansive view of kinship. Told through the passage of seasons, with beautiful illustrations by the author, it is a deeply thoughtful meditation on race, lineage and grief and a tender testimony to the ineradicable love between a mother and a daughter.