All Over Creation by Ruth L. Ozeki

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The three clans at once enabling and torturing each other in Ruth Ozeki`s All Over Creation--the central Fuller family, the neighboring Quinns, and the rag-tag activist found-family known as the "Seeds"--lift a basic morality play about forgiveness to a higher level. But what really gives All Over Creation its steam and sends it off in unexpected directions is the supporting story of modern mankind`s crucial but tenuous connection to nature, set in this case on a potato farm in sleepy Idaho.

Lloyd Fuller and his war-bride wife Momoko struggle to make their massive farm thrive. Teenage daughter Yumi, on the other hand, has no trouble blooming. She`s a wild child, but a series of bad decisions lead to a protracted estrangement from her puritanical father. When, years later, the adult Yumi reluctantly returns to the farm with her three children to care for her ailing parents, she must confront the wreckage she left behind (and the wreckage she`s made of her own life), while forging an uneasy peace with childhood friend Cass Quinn. Before long, the Fullers and the Quinns must also confront the radical environmentalist Seeds, who are convinced that dying Lloyd and delusional Momoko hold the key to propagating plant life on earth--and sidetracking the schemes of evil corporations--through smart farming. And they may be right. The abundant children on hand reinforce this theme of proper husbandry; they are, like nature, both a tremendous gift and a daunting responsibility. And while not every character--Yumi in particular--is likable, Ozeki, whose first novel was the funny and polemical My Year of Meats, provokes empathy through plain old humanity. Indeed, her ability to make us care deeply about the fate of these strangers is the book`s most abiding grace. The story`s conclusion takes some convenient outs, but the ride to the end is touching and terrific, thanks to the author`s spare but elegant prose and, especially, her kaleidoscopic cast. --Kim Hughes, Amazon.ca A BLACKSTONE AUDIOBOOKS AUDIE AWARD WINNER

Meet Yumi Fuller. A Japanese American prodigal daughter, Yumi (aka Yummy) is returning home to the Idaho potato farm she ran away from twenty-five years earlier. Then a freewheeling hippie chick, Yumi is now a fairly responsible parent and a professor selling lava lots in Hawaii. But can she possibly be prepared to face her dying father, her Alzheimer`s-devastated mother, and Cass, the best friend she left behind? And there`s the former lover whose agribusiness client has banished him to Idaho, where he lands in the small-town community he once offended and in Yumi`s life.

As she grapples with her conflicted past and uncertain future, Yumi collides with the Seeds of Resistance, a rollicking band of environmentalists who see her parents` potato farm as the ideal answer in their fight against genetic engineering.

With her signature wit and uncanny ability to evoke the pathos and humor of life`s conundrums, Ozeki spins a tale of family, food, and corporate greed. All Over Creation is the emotionally resonant and utterly unique story of an ordinary woman just trying to make sense of it all as the unceasing cycle of all creation continues around her.
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