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Description
Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt, the 1 New York Times bestseller and Oprah Book Club pick that has sold over three million copies Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to? Read more
Publisher : Flatiron Books
Publication date : January 21, 2020
Edition : First Edition
Language : English
Print length : 400 pages
ISBN-10 : 1250209765
ISBN-13 : 64
Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #44,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #4 in Hispanic American Literature & Fiction #117 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction #160 in Contemporary Women Fiction
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Kindle
This book was free through Kindle Unlimited and, because it was an Oprah book club choice, I uploaded it. From the opening paragraph, it grabbed me by my heart and soul. The story of a woman and her son on the run from a dangerous cartel boss who arranged the murders of her journalist husband and entire extended family came to vivid, wrenching life for me. As a writer myself, I was in awe of the perfect, beautiful, breathtaking, horrifying sentences. I couldn't stop reading as I joined the pair on their perilous journey from Aculpoco to the southern border. I kept wondering how I had not heard about this amazing book. I stopped reading and started researching the author and found out about the huge controversy that ensued surrounding Oprah's book club choice in early 2020 as COVID began to choke the planet. Concentrating on other things, I did not know about how many Latin American writers protested this white woman's book, which told the stories they were trying desperately to get the world to hear. While American publishing houses were barely considering their work, hers was elevated by the powers of Oprah and publishers who seemed to prefer this author's well-researched but not-lived version of the Latin reality. As an author myself, I am always aware that the prizes go to those who can tell the most compelling stories, period. "American Dirt," is one of the best-written, most horrifying, love-filled stories I've ever read. Certainly, Latinx writers should raise their voices against powerful publishing houses that don't welcome more diverse voices to their industry, but please give Jeanine Cummins her due for writing so masterfully about the human condition while illuminating the very desperate and real humanitarian crisis at America's southern border. I cared deeply about these characters. I worried about the people within the pages when I had to stop reading. The author used her substantial gifts to try and help us understand that at any moment, the security within any of our lives could be ripped away and we could become someone we might not recognize. Within her unforgettable story, Cummins wants us to see how alike we all are in our common desire to live safely and in peace among those we love; and yet how unique and precious each of us are. This book helps turn the kaleidoscope just a little bit towards a more richly colored image of our ever-changing world. It's inspirational and uplifting. I cannot wait for the movie.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2021 by Michele DeLuca
Format: Paperback
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins is an incredibly moving and powerful novel. With that said, it’s a strange time to be reading a novel about migrants coming to the US in today’s time. The story about Lydia and her son running from a Mexican drug cartel after they killed her entire family is very moving and you feel heartbreak for them. Throughout the book the telling of how they made it from Acapulco to the US is very moving and terrifying. I don’t know how anyone would be able to do that. The story is so emotional and heartbreaking and brings you up and down in feelings with everything they go through. I know I couldn’t do it and I know it’s a book but I also believe there are people going through this to try to get to the US. All that aside, the writing was very good with very good written characters.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2025 by BJ Renczkowski
Format: Hardcover
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.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2021 by Kimberly
Format: Kindle
I started reading books at a fairly steady clip at the beginning of this year. I would swap an easy detective book with something heavier, a book that leaves something in my soul. This is one of those heavy books. A book that gives insight into a life I will never know with writing that makes the experience feel rich and with a depth that will stay with me. American Dirt gives a human perspective to an experience so many have gone through but has somehow become so dehumanized by a group of people across the globe. While this story takes place between Mexico and the United States, this journey is taken by people looking to flee danger situations, attempting to find a ‘better’ life. I appreciate American Dirt for everything it taught me, and for everything it made me realize I was ignoring.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2026 by Jessica Haag
Format: Hardcover
First, all the blurbs are right. This is both a great page-turner and a heartrending story of flight, exile, hope, and horror--all a result of the lawlessness south of the border (a cartel economy impossible without American consumption) and the inhumane policies of the USA at the border. It is simply impossible to read the first seven pages without being propelled into the characters' lives (a mother and her 8 year old son who must flee North from a murderous cartel after the cartel slaughters most of their family, including the father). It is also a book that will make you weep--not once but many times. The ending is almost unbearable. Read this book--it's simply amazing. Now, the lost chance. This book could have changed the "debate" in America around immigration. It could have been the Grapes of Wrath or the To Kill a Mockingbird of its generation--books that helped make a minority view, a majority one--that made unions and social welfare mainstream (in the first case) and helped put the nail in the coffin of Jim Crow by making it impossible for moderate whites to remain detached from the evils of discrimination (in the second case). You cannot read this book without recognizing the profound humanity of those who seek a better life by migrating North to America. You cannot read this book without identifying with their fears and dreams. You cannot read this book without this humanization impacting your political views of the immigration issue. This book widely vetted, widely read, brought into the curriculum of high schools and colleges could have made certain narratives untenable and others more inevitable. But all that was derailed by the politics of resentment, which made the issue not the story, but the color of the skin of the author and the large advance she received for a book that, as a publishing investment, proved that advance to be a wise business decision (as the book was a number one bestseller). This racism forced a cancellation of the book tour, and made the conversation in the media focus not on the story and the themes of the novel (including its policy implications), but the color of the author's skin (yes I will keep saying that) and her contract (which is really nobody else's business). If you don't think this reaction was, quite simply, racist, ask yourself one question: if the book had been published with an author's name on the cover that was Latina, would it have been excoriated (as it was by many who practice the politics of resentment) or the recipient of an avalanche of praise for its profundity and elevation of the story of Mexican migrants? As a reader of many novels (and many blurbs) by authors of all ethnic identities, I have zero doubt as to the answer to this question. Those who culturally buried this book buried their own opportunity to use it as a platform for change--they ensured that polarization and inertia on this issue would remain intact, that the narratives would be Trumpism vs. Virtue Signaling, with both sides turning the human stories of undocumented migrants into objects--counters--for their pathetic rhetorical posturing. They preferred the self-righteousness of resentment to a step in the right direction.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2020 by seeker
Format: Kindle
American Dirt is one of the best novels I have read. It’s realistic, poignant, beautifully written and well-researched. It’s the story of an affluent Mexican woman from Acapulco who is driven from he home when her family is massacred by a drug cartel, because her husband, a journalist, wrote a newspaper article about a local drug lord. The woman, Lydia, and her eight-year old son Luca find themselves a part of the great horde of migrants making their way to the United States in search of a better life. Along the way, they meet many memorable characters, most good, some evil. Most importantly, I gained a deep and lasting appreciation of the migrant experience. American Dirt has been pilloried by some in the media who think that the author did not have the qualifications to write it, i.e., she is not Mexican, not a migrant, and did not live the experience herself. This is extremely wrong-headed. Ms. Cummins has done a great service for Mexican, Central American and South American migrants by popularizing their tragic experiences, much as John Steinbeck did for American tenant farmers during the dust bowl in Grapes of Wrath, and Herman Wouk for victims of the Holocaust in Winds of War. One does not have to be a member of an ethnic group to empathize with its members or accurately recount their experiences-basic humanity and a talent for writing and research is all that’s required. The book has also been criticized for fictionalizing a great tragedy of our times, but the novelist Ayn Rand knew that popular fiction is often a much more effective means of promoting social change than mere journalism is. The author has been accused of stereotyping Mexicans, but all I found here were well-drawn, complex characters. I verified her research continuously as I read the book, and I found no inaccuracies, from the destruction of the beautiful city of Acapulco by the cartels, the pestilence of gangs and warlords haunting the Mexican highways, or the horrors of riding La Bestia, the freight trains that carry the migrants on top of them, between borders. I was particularly heartened by Cummins’ descriptions of the services provided for migrants by ordinary Mexicans, who donate food, water, shelter and support to them in sympathy with their plight. Of course, some may say that my opinion is invalid, because I am not Mexican. But I say kudos to Ms. Cummis for her bravery, which is already resulting in unjust repudiation. No book is perfect, including this one. The story did lag in places due to over-description. And perhaps Ms Cummins should have chosen a more plebian tragedy that caused her protagonist to be uprooted, although the murder of journalists, law enforcement and government official by cartels is rampant in Mexico. But these are minor quibbles about a very great and important book.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2020 by Thomas Burns
Format: Hardcover
Early in 2019, my book group read Philip Caputo's novel, "Some Rise by Sin". The book has strong religious themes and tells a story of a Mexican drug cartel and its impact on the poor. The book stresses the pervasive nature of the cartel or "Brotherhood" and how it infiltrates all aspects of Mexican life. Our group is in the process of reading another novel set in Mexico and dealing with drug cartels. In contrast to the ponderous character of "Some Rise by Sin" and its focus on religious themes, Jeanine Cummins novel "American Dirt" is a page-turner. The novel tells the story of Lydia Perez and her eight year old son, Luca, who are forced to flee Acapulco and take their chances in reaching and entering the United States when they find themselves in the sights of a Mexican drug cartel. The book is a suspense story with elements of a picaresque road novel as it shows the many people and places Lydia and her son meet on their harrowing journey. The novel opens with a shocking scene in which Lydia's family is gunned down during a birthday celebration after Lydia's husband, a journalist, has written an expose of the newly-dominant cartel. Lydia owns a bookstore in Acapulco. She has become close friends with one of her patrons, Javier, a would-be poet and devoted reader. Lydia does not at first recognize Javier as the cartel leader. When the rest of the family, including Lydia's husband is killed by Javier's gang at the party while she and Luca hide in the house, she concludes that she must flee. Cummins describes Lydia's flight to the United States over 53 days 2,645 miles. She must watch vigilantly at every step to avoid the powerful, ever-present cartel. During the journey, she and Lucas meet many people, including fellow-migrants, kind individuals who try to assist the migrants, members of the cartel, and people in many Mexican cities and towns who try to live their lives and not to become involved with the cartel. The many characters in the story include two beautiful teenage sisters fleeing from Guatemala, who face many difficulties from sexually predatory men before and during their flight for a better life. Much of the flight of Lydia and Luca and their fellow migrants takes place on freight trains nicknamed "La Bestia". The migrants become adept at the task of scaling the freight railroads heading north. This mode of transportation has its risks, which are graphically described in the story. In addition to riding La Bestia, the other large part of the journey begins with Lydia and Luca reach a border town and need to arrange for their crossing into the United States. Together with several other migrants, friendly and unfriendly, they enlist the services of a coyote -- an individual who leads immigrants on the treacherous journey through the desert to make an illegal entry into el norte, The book offers a personalized portrayal of the coyote and of the brutal, high-risk nature of the journey. The book held my attention during several cold and icy days as I followed the journey of Lydia and Luca and was moved by the risks they faced and by the acts of kindness and compassion by those who helped them along the way, including several priests. Although it has a melodramatic component, the book reads well and for the most part convincingly. The book tells a story of the impact of the drug trade and the search of some individuals to find a better life. I enjoyed reading this book in a group, together with the Caputo novel, to get pictures of the Mexican drug cartels and their impact as viewed through the eyes of two United States novelists. Robin Friedman
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Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2021 by robin friedman
Format: Paperback
This book was engaging from start to finish. It begins with the horrific setting of a family massacre; committed during a birthday celebration at the home of Lydia and Sebastian. Lydia and her eight-year-old son, Luca, were the sole survivors. They hid themselves in a bathtub while listening in terror as gunshots rang out in the front yard, where family were barbequing chicken. Fifteen people were killed, including Lydia’s mother and her husband, Sebastian. There wasn’t time to grieve, or to make funeral arrangements for the victims. Lydia’s focus was on her and her son Luca’s safety. They left their home in Acapulco with utmost haste and urgency. Their destination was El Norte. Early in their journey, Lydia recollects the events which led to her family being targeted for annihilation. Her husband, Sebastian, was a journalist. He wrote an article profiling Acapulco’s new drug cartel potentate, a man she knew as Javier. She had met Javier when he entered her bookstore. They became friends, sharing an interest in poetry. She could not have imagined, in her wildest dreams, that this seemingly kind and cultured man, was head of a drug cartel. She could not have foreseen that the article Sebastian wrote would be read by Javier’s beloved daughter, Marta, who was away at college. Devastated by the news of her father’s nefarious deeds, Marta hung herself in her dorm room, provoking the vengeful wrath of Javier. So, along their perilous journey, Lydia had to watch her back, and keep a vigilant eye for potential sicarios employed by Javier. Cummins provides a searing description of Lydia and Luca’s trek to El Norte; a journey entailing fifty-three days and 2,645 miles from the site of the massacre. She gives the reader a poignant depiction of the people Lydia and Luca encounter along the way, beautifully illuminating their shared humanity. Cummins skillfully encapsulates the varied circumstances which led ‘El migra’ to leave their homes and family members. Some were escaping the tyranny of cartels. Some were avoiding becoming sex slaves. Some had been deported, and are now seeking a return to El Norte, and to a life offering an opportunity to earn a living, as modest and unassuming as that may be. A Ph.D. candidate was a deportee who joined Lydia’s group late in their journey. American Dirt is a must read. The gritty, intricate plot will keep you engrossed. The breadth and depth of the characters will enlighten and broaden an empathetic sensibility. It’s ending, culminating on American soil, will pull at the heartstrings.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2022 Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2022 by Henry Harris