American Dirt

By Jeanine Cummins

Flatiron     2020

400 pages     Literary

First, a word of advice: don’t try to read American Dirt if you are at all stressed out about being stuck at home during a pandemic. As Maureen Corrigan said on NPR’s Fresh Air, “American Dirt is the novel that, for me, nails what it’s like to live in this age of anxiety, where it feels like anything can happen, at any moment.”

I downloaded a copy of the book when it first came out in January because of the tremendous press it was receiving. Then the controversy began, and I decided I needed to read it because of what people were saying—that it was “trauma porn,” according to several Mexican and Mexican American writers. The major criticism seems to be who is allowed to tell the story—is this a case of cultural appropriation? An article in Slate explains the story. I’ll leave it to my readers to sort through the controversy.

In the novel, Lydia, a bookseller from Acapulco, and her little son Luca escape a mass killing of their entire family on the orders of the local cartel kingpin. Lydia had become acquainted with him at her bookstore, and consequently her husband Sebastian, a local journalist,  had written an expose of him. The tale then follows the mother and son’s harrowing journey to El Nord to escape the kingpin’s wrath. Along the way, they meet people traveling north under a variety of circumstances. They form alliances and have fearsome encounters as they travel.

I  am not sure that Lydia is typical of Mexican immigrants to the United States. Some readers and reviewers felt that she was too educated, too privileged. I reached out to Kathy, the lawyer at our local Justice For Our Neighbor (JFON) site, but she had not read the book. Although I work with JFON, I have not met enough of their clients to know just how typical Lydia is. I liked her a lot—her feverish protection of her son, her intelligence, her courage, and her endurance. Actually, almost all of the characters were interesting and well-defined.

The most important lesson I learned from American Dirt is that everyone has a story and everyone has a life experience. The people we meet in the book on the journey North all have stories to share—stories that tell why they came on this journey, where they are going, and what has motivated this journey. 

Despite its review challenges, I believe American Dirt is an excellent choice for individual or book club reading—just not during a pandemic. By the same token, don’t read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel right now, because it is about the results of a pandemic. Incredible book but scary just the same. Read something fun. That’s what I intend to do next.