American Dirt - Jeannine Cummins - April 25, 2022

Present were Beth, Betty, Carla, Colette, Linda, Marg, Michèle and Shirley.  We met at Colette's home and she provided us with an excellent variety of goodies, a lot Mexican,  taco torte, guacamole, both spicy and not, a nice variety of cheese and French chocolates.  Wine, coffee and tea was of course, also served.  

We discussed Marg's book choice, American Dirt by Jeannine Cummins.  This book was initially highly recommended by Oprah Winfrey.  It became very controversial when some Mexican-American authors criticized Ms. Cummins and the publication business of cultural appropriation, of creating Mexican stereotypes and using inaccurate Spanish phrases in the book.  The cover of the book with barbed wire was also severely criticized and has since been changed. Marg described the original cover with bluebirds that are free to fly anywhere including over borders and the barbed wire as cages that could limit. Both version appear above.

Jeannine Cummins is an American author.  She has published 4 books, 3 novels and a memoir.  She received a 7 figure advance for the book American Dirt.  

The novel is the story of a young middle class mother Lydia and her young son Luca who find themselves plunged into the terrifying life of migrants when her journalist husband and family are all assasinated.   They have no choice but to flee towards the American border.  

All our members enjoyed the book and found the story riveting and well worth reading.  Some found it exhausting but felt compelled to continue, to turn the page to read what situation Lydia and Luca would have to confront.  Ms. Cummins did an excellent job of describing the stress, the panic, the pressure to make instant decisions in difficult situations.  The characters are all well described, those they meet as they make their way to the border and those left behind.  

We had a discussion about the controversy the book caused in America and the publishing world.  Certainly we all agreed that limits cannot be placed on who writes about what story or subject.  However,  admittedly as a group of white middle class women, can we truly assess the impact such a book has on the Latinx authors community and the objectivity of the American publishing community?