American Dirt Oprahs Book Club, Jeanine Cummins
American Dirt Oprahs Book Club, Jeanine Cummins
39 Rating(s)
List: $32.99 | Sale: $21.78
Club: $16.49

American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club)
A Novel

Bestseller

Author: Jeanine Cummins

Narrator: Yareli Arizmendi

Unabridged: 16 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/21/2020

Categories: Fiction, Family Life, Women


Synopsis

#1 New York Times Bestseller
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK

“Extraordinary.”—Stephen King

“This book is not simply the great American novel; it’s the great novel of las Americas. It’s the great world novel! This is the international story of our times. Masterful.”—Sandra Cisneros

También de este lado hay sueños. On this side too, there are dreams.

Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.

Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy—two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia—trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?

American Dirt will leave listeners utterly changed. It is a literary achievement filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity. It is one of the most important books for our times.

Already being hailed as "a Grapes of Wrath for our times" and "a new American classic," Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt is a rare exploration into the inner hearts of people willing to sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope.

"Narrator Yareli Arizmendi illuminates the humanity and individuality of Latin American migrants as they flee toward refuge in the North..The account of Lydia and Luca's travails, including terrifying rides atop Mexico's freight trains, is utterly compelling. But it is Arizmendi's voicing of Lydia, so full of fierce tenderness, that will stay with listeners after the story's close."—AudioFile Magazine

About Jeanine Cummins

Although born in Rota, Spain, author, Jeanine Cummins was born to American parents, as her Dad was stationed in Spain with the US Navy. She grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland where she graduated from Towson State in English and Communications. After graduation, Cummin's travels took her to Belfast, Northern Ireland where she worked as a bartender. In 1997, she moved back to the United States to work at Penguin in New York City. It was after ten years of working for the publisher that she began her career as an author.

When Cummins was 16, there was an attempted murder of her brother, and an actual murder of her two cousins, which of course, was very traumatizing for the teenager. Her first book was about that horrendous memory. It is entitled A Rip in Heaven, for which she declined several offers to adapt the book to film.

Other works include, The Outside Boy, The Crooked Branch, and her latest, American Dirt. The book has been sold to Flatiron after a three-day bidding war which ended in Cummins receiving a seven-figure amount for American Dirt. It was on Oprah Winfrey's book list, but due to it's controversial subject matter, her planned book tour was cancelled, as Flatiron feared for her safety.

She considers herself white, but her grandmother was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where she says will be the setting of her next book. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Candi on February 03, 2020

I doubt there is a single person here on Goodreads that has not heard at least a hint of the controversy surrounding this book. I’m also confident that nearly every reader has at least a basic idea of the synopsis of American Dirt. So, I’m not really touching either of those elements in my review. I......more

Goodreads review by Nilufer on November 09, 2021

What a mind blowing beginning of a book! A mother, Lydia and her little boy, Luca hid themselves in the bathtub for not being other victims of family massacre. The contract killers/ most dangerous drug-lord’s dirtbags kept looking for them, firing their guns, calling their names. And finally they th......more

Goodreads review by Felicia on December 09, 2021

Ok seems like a bunch of privileged 'let me show you how woke I am' white people have decided they can speak for the Latin community. This is a work of FICTION. Google it if you don't understand. The author owes you nada. Move on. Get over yourself. Fuck off. To say that a non Latina has no right to......more

Goodreads review by Roxane on February 01, 2020

Nope. [URL not allowed]-fever-dr.........more

Goodreads review by Angela M on January 26, 2020

I wanted to read this novel because of the praise and high ratings by a number of my trusted Goodreads friends. Then just before I started to read it, I became aware of the criticisms in both the literary and press at large and I made the decision not to read any more of those articles until I finis......more


Quotes

Editors’ Choice from The New York Times Book Review
#1 Indie Next Pick for February
January 2020 Library Reads Pick

A Most-Anticipated Book of the Season/Year: The New York Times O, The Oprah Magazine VogueMarie ClaireReal SimpleElleEntertainment WeeklyWoman’s Day • Literary Hub • ParadeChicago TribuneThe Washington PostTimeFast CompanyForbesEsquireUSA Today • PopSugar • Bustle • The New York Times Book Review

American Dirt just gutted me, and I didn’t just read this book—I inhabited it….Everything about this book was so extraordinary. It’s suspenseful, the language is beautiful, and the story really opened my heart. I highly recommend it, and you will not want to put it down. It is just a magnificent novel.”—Oprah

American Dirt is a literary novel with nuanced character development and arresting language; yet, its narrative hurtles forward with the intensity of a suspense tale. Its most profound achievement, though, is something I never could’ve been told…American Dirt is the novel that, for me, nails what it’s like to live in this age of anxiety, where it feels like anything can happen, at any moment.”
Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air

“This tense, illuminating novel takes off like a rocket…”
People (Book of the Week)

“This novel is a heart-stopping story of survival, danger, and love…”
The New York Times

“I devoured the novel in a dry-eyed adrenaline rush….A profoundly moving reading experience.”
The Washington Post

“A heart-pounding, page-turning, can’t-put-it-down, stay-up-till-3 a.m., adrenaline-pumping story…that examines, with sensitivity, care, and complexity of thought, immense, soul-obliterating trauma and its aftermath.”
Los Angeles Times

“The story is masterfully composed of timeless elements: the nightmare logic of grief, the value of human kindness, the power of love to drive us to do the unimaginable…Cummins proves that fiction can be a vehicle for expanding our empathy.”
Time

“Destined to be a classic.”
Woman’s Day

“Heartfelt and hopeful, American Dirt is a novel for our times. Thrilling, epic, and unforgettable….”
Esquire

“Stunning…remarkable….A novel as of the zeitgeist as any, American Dirt is also an account of love on the run that will never lose steam.”
Vogue

“This one will tug at your heartstrings.”
Marie Claire

“The very best novel I’ve read about immigrants (and the best novel I’ve read over the past year)….American Dirt is being compared to The Grapes of Wrath, and the comparison is apt.”
San Francisco Chronicle

“Pulse-pounding.”
Chicago Tribune

“As literature, American Dirt is modern realism at its finest: a tale of moral challenge in the spirit of Theodore Dreiser wrapped inside a big-hearted social epic like The Grapes of Wrath. American Dirt is going to be the defining book of 2020.”
New York Journal of Books

“Propulsive.”
Elle

“I strive to write page-turners because I love to read them, and it’s been a long time since I turned pages as fast as I did with American Dirt. Its plot is tight, smart, and unpredictable. Its message is important and timely, but not political. Its characters are violent, compassionate, sadistic, fragile, and heroic. It is rich in authenticity. Its journey is a testament to the power of fear and hope and belief that there are more good people than bad.”
John Grisham

American Dirt is both a moral compass and a riveting read. I couldn’t put it down. I’ll never stop thinking about it.”
Ann Patchett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Dutch House and Commonwealth

“Why do we read fiction? By immersing ourselves in the lives of fictional characters we gain emotional depth, breadth, and empathy. We become more human. I have never felt more changed—or challenged—by a book than I have by American Dirt. It’s truly a revelation.”
Elin Hilderbrand, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Summer of ’69

“Relevant, powerful, extraordinary. It is a remarkable combination of joy and terror, infused always with the restorative power of a mother's love and the endless human capacity for hope. I hope everyone reads it and is as moved by it as I was.”
Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone

“Riveting, timely, a dazzling accomplishment. Jeanine Cummins makes us all LIVE and BREATHE the refugee story.”
Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies

American Dirt is an extraordinary piece of work, a perfect balancing act with terror on one side and love on the other. I defy anyone to read the first seven pages of this book and not finish it. The prose is immaculate, and the story never lets up. This book will be an important voice in the discussion about immigration and los migrantes; it certainly puts the lie to the idea that we are being besieged by ‘bad hombres.’ On a micro scale—the story scale, where I like to live—it’s one hell of a novel about a good woman on the run with her beautiful boy. It’s marvelous.”
Stephen King

“From its heart-stopping first sentence to its heart-shattering last, Cummins’s story of immigrants is just what we need now. Gritty yet sensitive, realistic yet hopeful, grand and granular, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins is a Grapes of Wrathfor our times.”
Don Winslow, author of the New York Times bestseller The Border

“The most gripping thriller you’ll read this side of Marathon Man. This thing goes harder than a Lee Child novel and the writing sings. Deserves to be a Gone Girl-level hit.”
Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman and Heart-Shaped Box

“Jeanine Cummins writes with such grace, compassion, and precision that I could not stop reading.”
Erika Sánchez, author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“This is a book that’s both hard to read and hard to put down and will no doubt spark a lot of conversation.”
Real Simple

“Time to sink into American Dirt.”
Entertainment Weekly

“This book is not simply the great American novel; it’s the great novel of las Americas. It’s the great world novel! This is the international story of our times. Masterful.”
Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street

American Dirt is an urgent, blistering, unforgettable book. In her portrayal of Lydia and Luca, a mother and son forced to leave their Mexican home, Jeanine Cummins has given face to migrants everywhere who flee violence and near-certain death in search of only one thing: a chance at life. Beautifully written, thrilling in its propulsive force, American Dirt is a new American classic.”
Tara Conklin, author of the New York Times bestseller The Last Romantics

“The story of the migrant is the story of our times, and Jeanine Cummins is a worthy chronicler. At once intimate and epic, American Dirt is an exhilarating and beautiful book about parental love and human hope.”
Rumaan Alam, author of That Kind of Mother and Rich and Pretty

“Urgent and unforgettable, American Dirt leaps the borders of the page and demands attention, especially now.”
Sarah Blake, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Postmistress and The Guest Book

“A powerful, moving, and unforgettable read.”
Reyna Grande, author of The Distance Between Us

“This tough, powerful novel is an eye opener. It made me understand better why someone would give up the home they know and love to survive, and the grit required to cross that border. It is essential reading for our time.”
Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring

“This extraordinary novel about unbreakable determination will move the reader to the core.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lydia and Luca are utterly believable characters, and their breathtaking journey moves with the velocity and power of one of those freight trains. Intensely suspenseful and deeply humane, this novel makes migrants seeking to cross the southern U.S. border indelibly individual.”
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

American Dirt may be the don’t-miss book of 2020.”
Booklist (starred review)

“Cummins is a skilled and empathetic chronicler of trauma and its aftermath…American Dirt is an immersive story, fueled by the elemental love of a mother for her son.”
Minnesota Star Tribune

“This gripping story of a mother and son on Mexico’s migrant trail combines humane intentions with propulsive, action-movie execution.”
The Guardian

“This is a book everyone should read.”
Woman & Home

“This powerful new novel promises readers a ride they’ll never forget.”
She Reads


Awards

  • Amazon.com Best Books of the Year
  • Boston Globe Best Books of the Year
  • (Selected for) Oprah's Book Club