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American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

There’s a saying in marketing that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. That expression is about to be put to the ultimate test.

Only a few weeks into the New Year and the publishing industry has a major controversy on its hands with the just-released American Dirt (Flatiron Books) by Jeanine Cummins — one of the most anticipated books of 2020 and the latest selection of Oprah’s Book Club.

While the book itself has been both praised and slammed by critics, it has generated outrage from members of the Latinx community, the #ownvoices movement and concerned observers in general about race, identity, Cummins’ depiction of Mexican migrants and her right in the first place to write about the plight of marginalized communities.

Consider this recent tweet from Esmeralda Bermudez, a staff writer at the LA Times who has been writing about Latinx for close to 20 years, as characteristic of the controversy: “Today the book world will deploy all its media power to persuade you to buy American Dirt, a book that grossly distorts and exploits the Latino immigrant experience. Don’t fall for it. The last thing immigrants need is to be ‘humanized’ by a cheap, stereotypical thrill. #ownvoices.”

She adds, “I am an immigrant. My family fled El Salvador with death pounding on our door. The terror, the loss, the injustice of this experience shaped everything about me. I see no part of myself reflected in American Dirt, a book white critics are hailing as the great immigrant novel.”

Bermudez also noted on Twitter that one does not have to be Latinx or even an immigrant to write about immigrants: “I’ve had white mentors who I respect because they’ve worked hard to see past their limitations, to understand the community. The problem is the book arena is ruled by white writers, agents, critics, gatekeepers.”

Another vocal critic of the work is author Leatrice “Elle” McKinney, writing as L.L. McKinney, who calls herself an advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing. She tweets, “If damn near all of Latinx Twitter says a book is problematic, I don’t need to read it first. I can just believe them.”

“Whiteness will pay millions so white people can make a mockery of BIPOC … Publishing will pay BIPOC authors a PITTANCE for their stories, then will barely market them, then blame the author/story for when it doesn’t sell. But this nonsense [American Dirt] gets whole dinners and Oprah and shit.”

This week, in the midst of Cummins’ publicity tour for the book launch, the author was interviewed in front of a packed crowd at the Winter Institute, a major industry event in Baltimore presented by the American Booksellers Association. Asked by an audience member whether she felt she, in effect, had the right to be a voice for this community, Cummins said, “That’s a question I asked myself for five years.”

But in the end, she said, “I wrote a work of fiction that I hoped could be a bridge instead of screaming into an echo chamber. … Who gets to tell what stories is an important question, and one we need to examine. I’m happy to have a book that’s opening up these conversations.”

The novel tells the story of Lydia, who lives in Acapulco and runs a bookstore. When the charming and intelligent Javier enters her shop, she is unaware he is the leader of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, their lives will never be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and her son find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, they make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join countless people trying to reach the U.S., Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something.

Cummins noted that she did extensive research on the book. And it did receive some pre-launch praise — Stephen King called it “extraordinary” and Don Winslow compared it to The Grapes of Wrath.

Ever wonder about Steinbeck’s title? From the Bible’s Book of Revelation: ”So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God.”

To be continued.

Buy this Book!

Amazon
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
Genre: Fiction
Author: Jeanine Cummins
ISBN: 9781472261400
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