In the Middle of Everywhere, by Mary Pipher

(Harcourt)

Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher’s groundbreaking classic on the not-so-pretty realities facing adolescent girls, spent almost three years on the New York Times bestseller list. Since then, just about every word Pipher has written has turned to gold. Her last two books, Another Country and The Shelter of Each Other, explored the demands of caring for our aging parents, and the transforming needs of the American family, respectively. Those were also bestsellers. Now this “great wise woman of American psychology” turns her attention to the intriguing and complex issue of immigration and the changing constitution of the American “melting pot.” Pipher was apparently inspired to write this new one when her Nebraska town became an official refugee resettlement center. Suddenly people from 52 countries—including Sudan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Vietnam—walked and shopped and congregated in the same Lincoln streets which had previously been populated by an essentially unchanged demographic for decades. As a therapist and “cultural broker,” Piper spoke with new Americans about family, culture shock, and resettlement issues such as work and school. Her conversations reveal much about distant cultures, and even more about our culture as witnessed through the eyes of the other. Harcourt is donating a portion of the proceeds from this book to the Pipher Refugee Relief Fund. Pipher reads on Monday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m at Weyerhaeuser Chapel, Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul.