Seventeen-year-old Ivy MacKenzie is consumed by bitterness over the tragic death of her Vietnam veteran father. Desperate to break free of a family that doesn't understand her and a small town that suffocates her, Ivy runs away with Gil Thompson-a stranger who shows her a passion she's never known and a violent danger she never saw coming. Ivy's younger brother Bryan has a tender heart, conflicting memories, and a fierce loyalty to his family. Their disengaged, high-strung mother Carol parents as best she knows how while coping with her own lingering heartbreak and entering into a new relationship. Though their voices and struggles are their own, each of the MacKenzies grapples with loss and disappointment and yearns for love and belonging. Together, they come of age and come to terms with the ways that memories and dreams can blur reality; they learn what it means to embrace family, flaws and all; and they discover how digging to Indochina can help them find their way home. "Biewald's writing probes and sifts the buried storage vaults of family relationships with an archaeologist's precision."-Lois Lowry, creator of the popular Anastasia Krupnik series and two-time recipient of the Newbery Medal for her books The Giver and Number the Stars "An always interesting, authentic story about the next generation, the children of Vietnam veterans-children who dig, not to China, but to Indochina. A good solid read." -Grace Paley, author of The Little Disturbances of Man, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, and Later the Same Day

I went to the kitchen, took off my coat. You'll find vat you need in the freezer, said the voice. Seven loaf cakes waited for me. I took them out to thaw. I covered a board with foil and prepared to mix an industrial sized batch of icing. Don't you be using shortening in that! In the refrigerator, I found pounds and pounds of butter. As I unwrapped each one, it softened in my hands, soft enough to mix with sugar. Shaping the cakes, gluing them together, listening to the voice in my head as I mixed colors I never knew existed and would never be able to recreate, I lost track of time. The butter cream, usually next to impossible to work with, held its shape better than any shortening. I lost myself in the cake, the last cake Sofie and I would make together. Praise for author Connie Biewald's Digging to Indochina "Digging is an apt metaphor for Connie Biewald's writing, which probes and sifts the buried storage vaults of family relationships with an archaeologist's precision. Her work will appeal to those readers who love the fiction of Anne Tyler and Carol Shields." -Lois Lowry, author of Newbery Medal Award-winning books, Number the Stars and The Giver Visit Biewald's website at www.conniebiewald.com.

The first major synthesis of the war since 2001, drawing upon a host of newly declassified documents, presidential tapes, and overlooked foreign sources to give the most comprehensive look to date of the war that still haunts America.

The definitive history of modern Vietnam and its diverse and divided past