American Dirt: A Novel

Jeanine Cummins tells the story of a family that experiences a tremendous loss and are forced to become migrants running for their lives from a cartel in this epic tale. Imagine everything horrible that can happen to a migrant, based on the news stories that you’ve heard, and almost all of that happens to one of the characters in this novel. Lydia Perez, her husband Sebastian, and her 8-year-old son Luca live a simple but comfortable life in Acapulco, Mexico, when one terrible momentous day everything changes. Sebastian is a newspaper reporter, who writes a story about the cartel that both Sebastian and Lydia think is innocuous enough. Lydia is the business owner of a bookstore, but she also has a connection to Sebastian’s investigative reporting into the cartels. In short, they both judge wrongly that they are safe, and the price that they pay is devastatingly high.Readers should be weary Cummins does not shy away from any of the atrocities that happen to migrants. There are themes of death, suicide, trauma, rape, and kidnap throughout. Sex trafficking is implied at points. If you are currently triggered by any of these, this may not be the season for you to read this book.Cummins concentrates her descriptive prose on the migrants in this novel, not the cartel. In the Author’s Note at the end of the novel Cummins states that she wanted to write about the migrant experience, not the cartel practices as other books have done, and I think she successfully accomplished it. Cummins describes the Perez’s in relatable ways, as a “regular” Mexican family, whose actions happen to impact a cartel member, which causes their lives to forever be changed. Readers can almost picture their own family as being just like the Perez family, the way Cummins describes their values and everyday lives before they have little choice but to become migrants.As the main characters start on their travel to “El Northe,” Lydia and Luca meet several other migrants. Some of them are nefarious criminals and should not be trusted, and some are innocent victims of circumstance just like themselves. Of course, Lydia and Luca cannot tell who is trustworthy and who is not, but the plot backs them into corners several times, and they must decide. Cummins adequately creates suspense in those moments when readers are also trying to discern if Lydia and Luca are going to be betrayed, robbed, or otherwise harmed. Most of the migrant travelers are men, so Lydia and Luca are especially vulnerable being a woman and young child.Some of the characters that Lydia and Luca decide to trust include a pair of sisters, and another young boy who is 10. It is these characters, as well as the main characters of Lydia and Luca, that Cummins spends the most time on. The way Cummins describes her characters background and motivation made it easy for me to feel invested in their safely crossing the border. I think most readers will find they care about the primary migrant characters, and that feeling intensifies the story.Another complication of Lydia and Luca’s escape is how abruptly they leave. This was not a well-planned journey they decided to take. It is a spur-of-the-moment fleeing, and not from their house but from someone else’s residence immediately after a violent attack. Because of this, Lydia has just moments to grab what she can and make life altering decisions about where to go and how to get to “El Northe.” This plot line gives Cummins liberty to have Lydia explore different methods that migrants use to get to the border of America and cross. At points, these portions read more like a social studies textbook than a literary novel and I felt my attention slip from the story, however temporary.The method that Lydia embarks on is to jump on top of a series of trains that are traveling north. Cummins has Lydia reason through why this is the best of the equally horrible methods of traveling north. Her descriptions of how the migrants board the train, what it is like to travel on them, how they get off the train and what the repercussions are of using the trains are superb. I was left wondering how she could describe this experience of traveling so well without having jumped on top of a train herself to experience it.Although portions of the novel felt like I was reading Cummins research for a non-fiction book, I feel like I learned a lot about the experience of migrants. I confess that before reading this book I did not much consider the reasons for people to try to cross America’s border, how they do it, or the perils of doing so. I have a great deal of compassion for migrants, but being in the Midwest of the U.S., honestly most weeks not a thought crosses my mind about America’s borders. Therefore, having much to learn, I finished Cummins book feeling like I accomplished a more in-depth understanding of the life-threatening danger and hardships that migrants endure.I am vaguely aware there was some controversy about this book when it released. I believe this centered around the fact that Cummins herself is not Latin American, nor has she been a migrant. Certainly, I would love to read a first-hand account of a crossing written by a migrant. Realistically, I can also understand the difficulties a migrant would have to overcome in order to write about that experience. In the absence of a first-hand account, I think American Dirt is Cummins’s attempt to be an ambassador for migrants by raising to attention some of the terrifying experiences they go through. In my opinion, there are no silent allies, therefore I deeply appreciate what I can only assume is her successful attempt to honor the migrant experience by describing a fair depiction. I am grateful for the deeper compassion for migrants that it afforded me.

Now that most of the ill conceived fussing about this book has died down, I decided to read it and decide for myself. I thought it was great. The story grabs you from page one and just keeps gathering steam. If it helps just one person to really think about how difficult the decision is to leave your country behind, then it will have accomplished it’s goal. The online firestorm that was spread around this book was disgraceful. The publishing world should apologize to the author for not having her back. This was and is a good read.

This is an exceptional story. It’s well written and feels authentic-as if the author lived every moment described. It reveals the struggles, hardships, risks and real dangers migrants endure to reach the U.S. and cross the border.I had received the book as a gift and this purchase was a gift for someone else. I highly recommend it.

I’ve read some reviews here that trash this book for being written by a white author about a Hispanic experience. My review isn’t about the political hypersensitivity of some, but about my feelings of a very powerful reading experience. The book centers on a woman and her young son who flee Acapulco, Mexico due to raging violence of drug cartels, and their harrowing journey to the north. I found it well written, gripping and full of detail that underscores that one mistake along the way can be the difference between life and death. Acts of personal bravery by people willing to provide a temporary safe haven, a jug of water or by sharing what little they have remind us that small acts of kindness are vital. I had to put this book down frequently while reading as I felt the tension and anxiety of the main character, not wanting the next thing to be her undoing. The book is fiction; the plight of migrants is not. I highly recommend this book to everyone!

This book was so real, one I will never forget! I knew it had to be a rough journey, but had no idea how rough, to go so many miles for a new beginning. Wow!

A friend of mine asked me to read this with her so we could discuss it. It was my first Jeanine Cummins. From the first few pages I was riveted. I became obsessed with reading more and more of Lydia and Luca’s journey. This is such an important read. I finished this book and was still dreaming about it a week later.

I really loved it. It was such a pleasant surprise. It has so many elements: a bit of Mexico, a bit of the US, thriller and an engaging story to bring life to this difficult journey!

Muy bien escrito, una gran historia que para miles de personas ha sido real, sin embargo el libro no deja de ser escrito bajo una autora americana sobre las vivencias de una mujer mexicana. Falta ese realismo que solo un mexicano puede otorgar a tan oscura historia llena de deseperación e inseguridad. Para mi el principal error en todo el libro es la verdadera razón o motivo del personaje por tener que llegar al Norte (USA) a toda costa, cuando en verdad desde el inicio se plantea un situación que no justifica todo ese trayecto a bordo de la Bestia, al ser una mexicana la protagonista del libro. Otro detalle basta molesto es el uso esporádico de palabras en español a lo largo del libro, lo entendemos, el libro es sobre personajes de habla hispana, pero la narrativa es inglés, no hay necesidad de poner palabras aleatorias en español para recalcar cada instante el uso del lenguaje.

I was born and raised in Honduras, this books summarizes many of the horrible things happening in the area known as the northern triangle ( Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador) as well as in Mexico. If someone wants to know why people is going all the way north risking their lives: read this book. Once you start you can’t stop reading; great book !

Uno dei libri migliori mai letti. Scrittrice con un dono straordinario per la descrizione dettagliata di luoghi, atmosfere, sentimenti...La storia è talmente avvincente da rendere difficile interrompere la lettura per qualunque motivo. A tratti è impossibile trattenere le lacrime. Personaggi indimenticabili. Tutto ciò che ci vuole per un vero best seller.

Thanks for detailed description this author made, I found myself always being with Lydia, Luca, Soledad and Rebecca as they were going through onerousness, like scaling up a wall of running locomotive onto its roof, trekking a desert with barreled water shouldering on them, leaving a body of adorable kid on a stark field without flower. This saga told me unbeatable resilience those who walk with a love next to, not in front of and behind, have, which is probably common faith human beings believe in. Her English depicted unknown locations like "Acapulco", beach resort used to be flourished with tourism, on my canvas which had been white for Mexico until before I had read this story. I was also noted that my knowledge in coyote as trafficker had been inadequate to get who he really was. American dirt is a drama which sticks into readers with both humaneness an inhumaneness.