American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

 

Title:  American Dirt

Author: Jeanine Cummins

Narrated by:  Yareli Arizmendi

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Length: Approximately16 hours and 43 minutes

Source: Checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library through Overdrive 

 What is your favorite book about a journey?

 American Dirt is an audiobook that I could not stop listening too.  The story really wrapped me in and made me really care about the characters.  It was the March selection for the Rogue book club, but I listened to it in February.

 Lydia Quixano Perez lives in Acapulco and is happily married to her husband, a journalist, Sebastian.  The novel starts off with a tragedy as Lydia’s entire family is slaughtered at a quinceañera party.  Only Lydia and her young son, Luca, survive by hiding in the shower.  Lydia and Luca start a perilous journey north through Mexico to the United States.  The story also flashes back to tell the story leading up to the massacre. Lydia owned a book store and had a favorite patron, Javier, that she became friends with.  Little did she know that Javier was a crime lord.  What did Javier have to do with Lydia’s families death and why?  Will Lydia and Luca make it to the United States?

 I greatly enjoyed this story.  The Javier and Lydia connection was fascinating and I wanted to know more about it.  The story was very perilous and made me think about the journey of so many migrants to our southern border.  I liked to trace Lydia and Luca’s path on a map to see where they were.  The story had great hooks and keep me interested.  Yareli Arizmendi was a great narrator and I thought of her as the voice of Lydia.

 I had heard this book had a controversy about it and I had to look it up afterwards.  The controversy is the author Jeanine Cummins, is not from Mexico and is not a migrant.  While I do really like #ownvoices of people telling their own stories, I also respect that authors write fiction.  I read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck at the same time I listened to this audiobook.  John Steinbeck was not an Okie and did not have to flee westward and work on migrant farms, but he was able to shine a light on an important migration and story in our history.  I feel the same way about this book.  Cummins may not have experienced it, but she is shining a light on an important migration that is currently happening right now.  This will hopefully make one look for nonfiction perspectives on it.

 What do you think?