My Amazon and Goodreads review of American Dirt: A Novel by Jeanine Cummins (Rating 5) – A Flight From Terror Into Horror. As a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I bristle at the charge of cultural appropriation levied against Jeanine Cummins for American Dirt. Authors have the right to address any topic from any POV they want; it’s called empathy. With that right comes an obligation to research and write an engaging story about believable characters. Applying those criteria, Cummins fully meets this obligation. In her suspenseful story, a mother fleeing el norte with her young son faces dilemmas anyone, anywhere, can recognize: how we feel when someone we thought we knew turns out not to be who we thought; the lengths a parent will go to in order to protect their child; how terror simultaneously clouds and clarifies our thoughts; the sense of community that develops among threatened people; the unspeakable horrors we inflict upon one another; and the unexpected acts of kindness that restore our faith in humanity. Although a disappointingly brief epilogue glosses over what fresh horrors await once migrants arrive in the U.S., the novel vividly details the perils of their journey to get here.
