Pamela Paul’s account of the story of Jeannine Cummins’ novel, American Dirt, written in 2023, three years and three months after the book published. (There’s a buy link under that title and I suggest you use it, because it’s a good book.)
Some excerpts from Paul’s column:
In one of those online firestorms the world has come to recognize and occasionally regret, activists, writers, self-appointed allies and Twitter gunslingers competed to show who was more affronted by the crime of the novel’s success. “American Dirt” was essentially held responsible for every instance in which another Latino writer’s book got passed over, poorly reviewed or remaindered.
Yet in their assertion that the publisher somehow “made” this book succeed in ways they wouldn’t for another Latino author, the novel’s critics misunderstood several fundamentals about how publishing works. First, it is a business, and one in which most novels fail. [emphasis Dana’s]
The outcry among its detractors was so thunderous, it was hard to see at the time that the response to “American Dirt” wasn’t entirely grim. There was no significant outcry outside the American literary world’s cloistered purview. And significantly, the novel was translated into 37 languages, selling well over three million copies worldwide.
The novelist, filmmaker and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (“Amores Perros,” “21 Grams”) says that in Mexico, the novel was read and appreciated. “As a Mexican born and raised, I didn’t feel the least uncomfortable with what Jeanine did,” Arriaga told me. “I think it’s completely valid to write whatever you want on whatever subject you want. Even if she exaggerated the narco aspect, that’s the privilege of an artist.” When Arriaga discusses the novel with book clubs in Mexico, he says, nobody raises the concept of cultural appropriation.
There is a good discussion in the comments mostly among readers and largely free of trolling.
I read American Dirt, of which I wrote, “Very well written and excruciating read. I will never forget women as cuerpatomaticos (human ATM machines) and “If you can’t trust a librarian, who can you trust?””
Pamela Paul just wrote her last column for the New York Times, which includes links to many of her columns, all of which are worth your time. Gift link here.
Yes, this, too, is #thiswritinglife.
#thiswritinglife Chatter American Dirt Jeannine Cummins Pamela Paul