Immigrant writers who have made their homes in Montreal grapple with difficult questions like reconciling loyalty to their origins and to their own most private selves with the need to find a readership, and their desire to belong to the society where they live. Putting Down Roots follows the author's exploratory journeys among writers of Italian, Haitian, Arab, South Asian, and Chinese origin, as well as those writing in Yiddish, Spanish, and Hungarian.