All of the scary things that happen to them happen only in Mexico. But - spoiler alert! - that’s not how it ends. Given its title, I expected Luca and Lydia to make it to America only to be treated like dirt: detained at the border, regarded as criminals rather than victims, doubted and dehumanized. The book starts off at a run and rarely rests, moving at the same urgent pace as Luca and his mother, Lydia, frantically try to escape the reach of the cartel leader behind the murders - safety that they believe is possible only in the United States. You’ve got a little boy taking a pee during a party at his grandmother’s house when men with guns kill 16 family members, his father included. One of the very first bullets comes in through the open window above the toilet where Luca is standing. Once I dared to start reading, I was drawn in immediately.
When my turn finally came in late August, I picked up the book but did not open it right away because I was feeling stressed for a variety of reasons, and reading a story centered around violence and fear would not help my mood. Then along came the pandemic, which froze all activity at the library and everywhere else, so the wait was that much longer.
I did not want to support literary colonialism, so buying it was out. To make up my own mind, I needed to read the book. If the book were bad, it would be easy to criticize the whole package: unappealing writing, wrong writer. That’s because in January, soon after the novel was published, controversy erupted over the fact that Cummins is more-or-less white and therefore had appropriated a story that wasn’t hers to tell. Not liking the book, or finding it mediocre, would have been easier.
I didn’t expect to have such a strong reaction to it. “American Dirt” is a harrowing fictional story of a mother and her young son fleeing for their lives from a drug lord in Mexico.
I’ll just say it straight up: I liked “American Dirt” very much.
0 kommentar(er)
