"The bean trees" by Barbara Kingsolver (Virago, 1989)

The main character Marietta (first-person - a girl living in the states) doesn't know who her father is. After 5 years working part-time in a medical lab she buys a cheap VW and leaves home, renaming herself Taylor Greer. On the way, in a bar, she's given a Cherokee pre-toddler. She calls her Turtle. She finds a hotel in Broken Arrow to stay in for a while, paying her way. Then she drives to Tucson, gets punctures, finds "Jesus Is Lord Used Tires" run by Mattie. Upstairs is a sanctuary for Guatamalan and Salvadoran refugees.

Lou Ann Ruiz (third person) is giving birth in 2 months. She's into horoscopes and signs. Ivy's her mother and her grandmother's close. Her husband Angel, an ex-rodeo, who lost half a leg in an accident, has left her. After the birth of Dwayne Ray she advertises a room. Taylor applies and moves in.

Turtle's first word is "bean" (it looks like what it will grow into) and she soon learns the words for other vegetables. Taylor's mother phones to say she's remarrying. Lou Ann gets a factory job. Angel wants her to go to live with him. Mattie is interviewed on TV about the sanctuary. Taylor becomes friends with 2 refugees who live with Mattie - Estevan (an ex-teacher of English; she rather loves him) and Esperanza (who wants children). They speak to each other in Spanish because they know different Mayan languages. Esperanza tries to overdose on aspirin. Taylor learns that their daughter was taken from them because they didn't reveal names of union members. Taylor says "Sometimes I feel like I'm a foreigner too. I come from a place that's so different from here you would think you'd stepped right off the map into some other country where they use dirst for decoration and the national pastime is having babies ... Half the time I have no idea what's going on around me here".

When Turtle is X-rayed the doctor says she has old compound fractures. Social services say Taylor has no claim on Turtle. She decides to try to find Turtle's relatives so she can get them to sign something. She offers to take Estevan and Esperanza - they're in danger of being deported. They set off early and are stopped. The couple say that Turtle's their daughter. They find the original bar but the owner etc has changed. They rent a lakeside cottage for the night. Turtle twice says "Mamma" where humans are buried. Was her mother buried? Does she think humans grow like beans? Estevan and Esperanza can easily merge into Cherokee Nation. We're led to believe that Taylor will leave Turtle with them (thinking Turtle would have a better life that way) but in the end they pretend to be Turtle's parents and sign adoption papers. Taylor phones her now-married mother for the first time in months. Then she has almost a conversation with Turtle, about the people back home. They pause in a library where Taylor identifies what Turtle calls a bean tree as wisteria. It came from the Orient. It thrives in poor soil thanks to rhizobia - bugs that help the plants. She phones Lou Ann, who isn't going to join Angel - she asked advice from his mother. She's found a boyfriend of African descent.

Chapters have titles which are the odd-page headers. There's an avalanche of happy news at the end - I guess the characters deserve it. Some symbolic loose ends are tidily tied up too. Themes include motherhood, language, finding a home, friends vs family. The prose is fast-moving, the style flexible -

• The clouds were pink and fat and hilarious-looking, like the hippo ballerinas in a Disney movie
• I began to suspect that sharing harmonious space with an insightful Virgo might require even greater credentials than being a licensed phlebotomist in the state of Arizona
• she was looking at me the way you do when you first notice someone is deformed. In sixth grade we had a new teacher for three weeks before we realized his left hand was missing. He always kept his hanky over it. We'd just thought it was allergies
• White rocks sloped up out of the water like giant, friendly hippo butts
• the city was like a palm stretched out for a fortuneteller to read, with its mounds and hillocks, its life lines and heart lines of dry stream beds
• Cynthia was concerned about Turtle's tendency to bury the dollies, believing that it indicated a fixation with death, but I assured her that Turtle was only trying to grow dolly trees

I like it.

Other reviews

• Annie sauveur (I see its faults. A book about a white woman making a lot of half-hearted commentary on POC issues. ... it’s weird that she didn’t call the police—especially when she discovers that Turtle had been sexually abused. It’s a little strange that she just adopts Turtle and that’s the end of it. But I think that is who Taylor is. She is very straightforward, steadfast, and headstrong. Blunt, to a fault. ... In some scenes, she blends into the background, she asks and answers in ways that fit the other characters a little too well. ... The writing is magic.)
• Winona media (This novel is about great damage and great healing. From a rich mix colloquial language, off-beat characters, and an imaginative plot, a central theme of hope in the face of justified despair is skillfully developed.)