Yumi Fuller is a Japanese-American prodigal daughter returning home to the Idaho potato farm she ran away from twenty-five years earlier. Then a freewheeling hippie chick, Yumi (aka Yummy) is now a fairly responsible parent and a professor. But can she possibly be prepared to face her dying father, her Alzheimer's-devastated mother, her former lover, and Cass, the best friend she left behind? As she grapples with her conflicted past and uncertain future, Yumi collides with a rollicking band of environmentalists who see her parents' potato farm as the ideal answer in their fight against genetic engineering.
This novel aims to show how much of the world can be involved with one seed. (A lot.) Her parents' health crises force Yumi Fuller to come home to the Idaho potato farm she ran from decades earlier. At the same time, a band of environmental activists in a Winnebago is also converging on the Fuller farm because the business Yumi's Japanese mother has started, raising and distributing heirloom seeds, fits their political agenda. The story keeps exploding outward like a clump of cells becoming a complex plant but is never out of control; it never even strains credulity. Anna Fields's reading is as accomplished as the storytelling; as audio experiences go, this is just about perfect. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2004 Audie Award Winner (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
