“Extraordinary.” –Stephen King “This book is not simply the great American novel; it’s the great novel of las Americas. It’s the great world novel! This is the international story of our times. Masterful.” –Sandra Cisneros También de este lado hay sueños. On this side, too, there are dreams. Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, … Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.
Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy–two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia–trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?
American Dirt will leave readers utterly changed. It is a literary achievement filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page. It is one of the most important books for our times.
Already being hailed as “a Grapes of Wrath for our times” and “a new American classic,” Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt is a rare exploration into the inner hearts of people willing to sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope.
more
Stunning. Beautiful. Important
Jeanine Cummins has written a work of courage,compassion and hope.Those immigrants who die by the thousands risk everything to escape often dangerous and hostile living conditionsOne of the writers last sentences capture the purpose of her novel on a border wall in Tijuana is written On this side,too there are dreamsHow can we turn our back on those who suffer when we have so much How can our dreams be more worthwhile than our fellow man Let those walls become bridges
This is a beautifully-written story full of tragedy, violence and heartbreak, as well as hope, love and forgiveness. I won’t go into the controversy that swirled upon this book’s release. I will say those who criticize this story and author, yet have not even read the book, are doing it and humanity a huge disservice. This is an important and universal story, one that deserves to be told. The color of an author’s skin should not matter if her story moves hearts and opens minds.
During a celebration, an entire family is gunned down. The only survivors are Lydia and her young son. She knows that the cartel leader responsible will murder them too if they stay in the city, that their only hope is to outsmart and outrun their pursuers. This is an utterly gripping, immersive story of courage and determination against all odds. A truly remarkable book I wholeheartedly recommend.
Perhaps destined to be the most controversial book of 2020, this work of fiction, American Dirt, has
the misfortune of being written by a non Latinx author, a middle class, educated, non-immigrant half White and half Puerto Rican (from a Puerto Rican grandmother) American who is accused of cultural appropriation, exaggerating racial stereotypes, misrepresenting real life in Mexico and Central America, and capitalizing on a story that is not her story or the story of her people. The author has experienced death threats, cancellations of interviews across the country, removal of American Dirt from book stores, yada, yada, yada.
Despite the myriad heart-wrenching sagas presented by Latinx and Hispanic authors, somehow Oprah, the publishing world, and the press have jumped on this non-authentic book as the one that truly presents the plight of today’s Latinx immigrant. So, why all the positive acclaim? It has always been my contention that too many of today’s books are rewarded for the timeliness of their subjects rather than than the excellence of their writing. This is one of those examples. But, still, can’t her opponents just ignore her, rather than hunting her down and killing her, so to speak?
Fleeing violence, murder, rape, trafficking, robbery, starvation, lack of educational opportunities, and loss of dignity—undertaking the dangerous journey to salvation in the United States of America—is a horrific experience. What is lacking in this book is heart and soul. It does not capture my emotions. I did not feel any emotional connection to the characters. Yes, intellectually their plight is a sad one, but the author fails to present her book as an emotional appeal. More like a newspaper account or a documentary, the story is often told, rather than shown. Maybe this is the sad result of the author lacking first-hand experience. Her heart was not broken, only her mind was horrified.
In the Author’s Note at the end of the book, Cummins apologizes for considering herself American and a non-suffering member of the middle class, plays up the inherent racism directed at brown and black people and the misconceptions about their cultures held by the privileged whites. It’s a given that it’s going to come down on this chick from all sides.
Personally, I’m tired of people who pander to the current subversive, divisive propaganda for profit, then get rewarded for it. This book is preachy and what is presented as fact is most often a distorted emotional argument. Maybe researched, but not well-presented.
The author studied this subject for many years before writing her book. Cummins tells us two female cousins were brutally raped, beaten and thrown over a bridge while her brother was beaten and then thrown over the same bridge by four American thugs in St. Louis, Missouri. The author’s husband was an undocumented immigrant from Ireland. They lived in fear that he would be deported until they were finally married. These are the reasons the author feels entitled to tell the story she has written?!? What does one thing have to do with the other?
The author claims to abhor violence in all forms and is horrified by its prevalence in the country to our south. It is for these reasons that she researched and wrote this book: “As I traveled and researched, even the notion of the American dream began to feel proprietary. There’s a wonderful piece of graffiti on the border wall in Tijuana that became, for me, the engine of this whole endeavor. I photographed it and made it my computer wallpaper. Anytime I faltered or felt discouraged, I clicked back to my desktop and looked at it: También De Este Lado Hay Sueños—On this side, too, there are dreams.”
Let’s get to the plot. Attractive, self-absorbed, Acapulco book store owner Lydia and her eight year old son, Luca, are forced to flee for their lives after her politically and culturally critical journalist husband and fifteen family members are shot dead by the gang banger emissaries of the newest local drug lord with whom Lydia has been having flirtatious, esoteric discussions about poetry and literature at her book store. Even though Lydia’s husband has just published a controversial expository about La Lechuza, Lydia is convinced that his warm feelings for her will protect her husband, her family and her from any retribution on his part. How wrong she is!
The mother and son are joined by other asylum seekers and together they make the perilous journey. The author makes a point to make sure we know that there is good and bad along the way, and we shouldn’t dwell on negative stereotypes disseminated by American leaders, residents of states bordering Mexico, and reports by the American press and border guards.
In the Author’s Notes, Cummins states that we consider ourselves to be the only Americans and do not include citizens of Central America and South America in the term. This is how I see it: The name of our country is the United States of America, so citizens are Americans. Americans does not refer to the continent on which we live since the continent of North America includes the US, Canada and Mexico. The citizens of Canada and Mexico are called Canadians and Mexicans respectively. Central America is a region comprised of seven countries, so their citizens are referred to as citizens of such (ex. Guatemalans, Nicaraguans), not by the region in which they live. This is also true of the citizens of the thirteen countries that comprise the continent of South America. They are referred to as citizens of their country (ex. Agentinians, Colombians), not the continent on which they live. In conclusion, citizens of the United States of America have the right to exclusively be called Americans because it is the name of our country.
To those who portend that reports of violence in Mexico and Central American countries are greatly exaggerated, if this is true, why are people leaving those countries by the thousands with stories that would put goosebumps on the arms of anyone listening? Are you suggesting these stories are a ruse for admission to the US?
Loved this book!
While it has been highly criticized, I found it to be thought provoking and fairly well written. It made me want to know more about the immigration issue on our southern border.
Beautifully written and great characters. Very hard to read in that the story is sad but well worth it.
This story was so engaging and horrific that it sounded authentic as a fictional story. It uncovers the obstacles and tragedies amongst the Mexican cartel and community as a strong female protagonist struggles to leave Mexico for the United States of America with her eight-year-old son. This book demonstrates themes of resilience, strength, death, poverty, and the love of family. Well worth a read.
I agree with the newspaper review that called this “The Grapes of Wrath for our times.” Gripping from the first sentence.
American Dirt has been mired in so much controversy, I almost didn’t read it. The #MeToo and the #OwnVoices movements have caused a fundamental shift in America and in American literature. As a writer myself, I don’t believe that only POC writers can write a POC story, that only people who have been raped can write a true account of rape, or that only women can write female voices or that only men can write male voices. The key ingredients for any book are a good imagination, empathy, and a sensitivity to the story/voice you are writing.
That said, I agree with Roxane Gay’s article in January’s GAY magazine: “Creativity demands that anyone should be able to tell the kinds of stories they want, but how those stories are told matters and creative freedom does not grant critical immunity. Perfection isn’t the goal, but accuracy and authenticity are. When people tell stories beyond their subject position, all too often they do it poorly. The depictions are caricatures, rife with stereotypes, flat and distorted. The people whose communities are so poorly represented speak up but are rarely heard. Writers are allowed to make mistakes.Writers are allowed to write bad books. To critique American Dirt isn’t about jealousy or misogyny or censorship. It’s about demanding better.”
Certainly Jeanine Cummins has the right to produce any type of fiction she likes, but having her work read by Latinx sensitivity readers before publication might have helped flesh out her rather flat, stereotypical characters. She has taken what is a harrowing experience to millions of immigrants—crossing into the US from its southern border—and turned it into a common thriller. I read the entire book in two evenings, so it’s definitely a page-turner. The language ranges from gritty to near-poetic. I found point-of-view shifts, particularly toward the end, problematic, and there were shifts from past to present tense that didn’t quite make sense to me. As American Dirt is a thriller, the characterization isn’t particularly strong, and it’s more plot-driven than character-driven.
I read the acknowledgments / author’s notes at the end and found this phrase particularly icky: “I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it [a true immigrant story]?” What quirk in her brain allowed such words to pop out of her mouth, and what idiot in her publishing team thought that would be a good quote? Many people, including Latinx writers, activists, and immigrants, have written books of equal or greater stature. The real American Dirt is that the American publishing system is broken. The vast majority of people within the industry are white, view the world with white privilege and seem committed to promote that privilege, thus the true migrant story have been written but, sadly, never published.
This book broke my heart and as Oprah said “gutted me”. I will never feel the same about immigration. I will forever be indebted to the author for enlightening me to the tragedy of these people just wanting to survive and what they are willing to endure for freedom.
Well written. Couldn’t decide between wanting to get to the end and never wanting it to end.
Filled with controversy but utterly of the moment, this is an important book that makes you think – whatever you decide about the content. Utterly relevant, brutally honest, unrelenting. Great writing and unflinching from tough subject matter, this is one not to miss.
Good evening, my Fellow Book Dragons. I hope your week is going well so far. Tonight we see not a Gem, but something more akin to silver, which can be melted down and turned into many things, cutlery, jewelry, crosses, things both sacred and profane. This is Jeanine Cummins’ “American Dirt” which all the hype promises to be one thing, but at least to me, was something else entirely.
This is the story of Lydia and her eight year old son, Luca, who lose many family members in a gangland massacre in retaliation against her journalist husband, himself among the dead, during a barbecue one Saturday afternoon. Lydia is involved peripherally, through the bookstore she owns. She understands that some members of law enforcement are on the payroll of this Cartel Don aka (“The Owl” )and his Family. There is no safe place to hide in Acapulco. She gathers what resources she can (these are substantial) and makes it to a hotel for the night. But she soon realizes The Owl has found her and so she quickly makes alternate plans. She is smart, she is resourceful. I like her very much. She is not weak or silly.
She makes contact with a family friend who could have been a great help, but alas, Ms. Cummins does not give this character the power that could have been. She turns him into a mere chauffeur. This is where I started to get a bit frustrated. For me, dear Book Dragons, what makes really good crime or thriller fiction, the kind that has me turning pages until my brain drifts off to sleep and the book slips from my claws and smacks me between the eyes, rudely waking me up, is an element of truth that runs through the book and this is where it stopped.
Lydia and her husband, Sebastian are well educated people. He is a journalist. He is a journalist who writes about the cartels. He is a journalist who reports on the cartels and tells the truth about them in a time when journalist are being picked off like metal ducks in a carnival and people are finding decapitated heads in the streets like I find pennies and old napkins. And yet, they made no plan, no arrangements in case…They did no research on what if..Lydia who reads like breathing, and loves her child fiercely, never bothered to check out what she would need in case her husband ever came up dead. Nothing at all did they do, even though her husband had taken to working out of anonymous hotel rooms and not using his name in his byline? It doesn’t ring true. And this is why.
I knew a family in a similar situation. They had, by a string of coincidences, become involved with a Very Bad Man. When they realized this was the case, they began to plan. What happens if something happens to the mother, the father or both? Where do they go, what do they do? What do they need. They ordered birth certificates and visas. They kept money. All this they did and this was not a Cartel Don and his Family.
I am not going to tell you more than that because I don’t do spoilers and to do so really spoils the story. The story itself is well written and it’s okay if you like a mother/child story and aren’t looking for what the hype around the book promises. Don Wilson calls this book “A Grapes of Wrath for our times.” if he truly believes this, he’s never read Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and I hope Steinbeck comes back to haunt him for promising something the book doesn’t deliver. It’s not fair to Cummins’ either because it’s not a bad book. If you like cartel stories with more oomph, you might try Jeanine Kitchel’s “Wheel’s Up” which is based on actual events during her time in Mexico.
Join me tomorrow for Whimsical Wednesday, when we examine “Tweet Cute” by Emma Lord. Also, “The God Game” is being given away on 1/31/20 at 11:59pm est.
Until tomorrow, I remain, your humble Book Dragon, Drakon T. Longwitten.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Flatiron Books in a drawing.
Jeanine Cummins writes with such grace, compassion, and precision that I could not stop reading.
American Dirt is an urgent, blistering, unforgettable book. In her portrayal of Lydia and Luca, a mother and son forced to leave their Mexican home, Jeanine Cummins has given face to migrants everywhere who flee violence and near-certain death in search of only one thing: a chance at life. Beautifully written, thrilling in its propulsive force, American Dirt is a new American classic.
The story of the migrant is the story of our times, and Jeanine Cummins is a worthy chronicler. At once intimate and epic, American Dirt is an exhilarating and beautiful book about parental love and human hope.
A powerful, moving, and unforgettable read.
Urgent and unforgettable, American Dirt leaps the borders of the page and demands attention, especially now.