Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast Nicky Pellegrino weighs in on controversial new novel American Dirt
Jan 26, 2020
09:11
New Zealand author Nicky Pellegrino discusses controversial new novel American Dirt with Kerre McIvor above. CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet explores the debate below.
Oprah Winfrey's new message is clear: You won't be able to put this book down.
"From the first page, the first sentence, I was in, I was open, I was shook up," she says in a video announcing the novel "American Dirt" as her next book club pick. "It woke me up, and I feel that everybody who reads this book is actually going to be immersed in the experience of what it means to be a migrant on the run for freedom."
But some Latinos are responding with a message of their own: We won't be picking this book up, and neither should you.
"American Dirt" tells the story of a Mexican woman and her son fleeing to the US after a drug cartel massacre devastates their family. It's billed as "a 'Grapes of Wrath' for our times" and "a new American classic."
But Jeanine Cummins, the author, isn't Mexican or a migrant. And for some would-be readers, that's a problem that can't be erased by plugs from celebrities or promotion from publishers.
The novel, already being adapted into a movie, has become the latest flashpoint in a growing debate about representation, cultural appropriation and whether artists can -- or should -- tell stories about identities they don't know firsthand.
It's an argument that's raged in response to music and movies, too -- remember when Jennifer Lopez sang Motown and Emma Stone played a character of Chinese and Hawaiian descent?
And now the debate has detonated yet again, thanks to a 392-page book with barbed wire criss-crossing its cover.
A book party with barbed wire decorations
Oprah's Book Club picks have a reputation for their hefty influence in the publishing industry. Winning the billionaire's blessing can send a book to the top of the bestseller list as adoring fans and avid readers scramble to get a copy.
It's been called "the Oprah Effect." Toni Morrison's books, for example, reportedly got more of a sales boost from Oprah's endorsements than from the author's Nobel Prize.
That could happen for "American Dirt," too. Amazon is already listing the book among its most popular titles.
Debate over "American Dirt" had already bubbled up before Oprah's announcement Tuesday. The book had garnered some rave reviews and praise from authors like Stephen King, Don Winslow and Sandra Cisneros, but also fierce criticism in some corners from reviewers who'd read it and some authors who vowed they never would.
But when Oprah blessed the book, the conversation kicked into overdrive.
Critics accuse Cummins -- who reportedly got a seven-figure book deal for "American Dirt" after a bidding war between publishing houses -- of relying on stereotypes to paint an inauthentic picture of Mexican migrants, and exploiting trauma and pain for profit.
And their outrage grew this week as tweets surfaced showing the author celebrating the book at a dinner featuring floral centerpieces wrapped with barbed wire and sporting a manicure featuring the barbed wire design that's on her book cover.
The author wrote that she 'wished someone slightly browner' would tell the story
In an author's note included in the book, Cummins acknowledges she grappled with whether she should be the one to write it.
"I worried that my privilege would make me blind to certain truths, that I'd get things wrong, as I may well have. I worried that, as a nonmigrant and non-Mexican, I had no business writing a book set almost entirely in Mexico, set entirely among migrants. I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it," she says.
"But then, I thought, If you're a person who has the capacity to be a bridge, why not be a bridge? So I began."
Cummins, who has described herself as white, also says in the note that her Puerto Rican grandmother's experience coming to the United States inspired her....
Oprah Winfrey's new message is clear: You won't be able to put this book down.
"From the first page, the first sentence, I was in, I was open, I was shook up," she says in a video announcing the novel "American Dirt" as her next book club pick. "It woke me up, and I feel that everybody who reads this book is actually going to be immersed in the experience of what it means to be a migrant on the run for freedom."
But some Latinos are responding with a message of their own: We won't be picking this book up, and neither should you.
"American Dirt" tells the story of a Mexican woman and her son fleeing to the US after a drug cartel massacre devastates their family. It's billed as "a 'Grapes of Wrath' for our times" and "a new American classic."
But Jeanine Cummins, the author, isn't Mexican or a migrant. And for some would-be readers, that's a problem that can't be erased by plugs from celebrities or promotion from publishers.
The novel, already being adapted into a movie, has become the latest flashpoint in a growing debate about representation, cultural appropriation and whether artists can -- or should -- tell stories about identities they don't know firsthand.
It's an argument that's raged in response to music and movies, too -- remember when Jennifer Lopez sang Motown and Emma Stone played a character of Chinese and Hawaiian descent?
And now the debate has detonated yet again, thanks to a 392-page book with barbed wire criss-crossing its cover.
A book party with barbed wire decorations
Oprah's Book Club picks have a reputation for their hefty influence in the publishing industry. Winning the billionaire's blessing can send a book to the top of the bestseller list as adoring fans and avid readers scramble to get a copy.
It's been called "the Oprah Effect." Toni Morrison's books, for example, reportedly got more of a sales boost from Oprah's endorsements than from the author's Nobel Prize.
That could happen for "American Dirt," too. Amazon is already listing the book among its most popular titles.
Debate over "American Dirt" had already bubbled up before Oprah's announcement Tuesday. The book had garnered some rave reviews and praise from authors like Stephen King, Don Winslow and Sandra Cisneros, but also fierce criticism in some corners from reviewers who'd read it and some authors who vowed they never would.
But when Oprah blessed the book, the conversation kicked into overdrive.
Critics accuse Cummins -- who reportedly got a seven-figure book deal for "American Dirt" after a bidding war between publishing houses -- of relying on stereotypes to paint an inauthentic picture of Mexican migrants, and exploiting trauma and pain for profit.
And their outrage grew this week as tweets surfaced showing the author celebrating the book at a dinner featuring floral centerpieces wrapped with barbed wire and sporting a manicure featuring the barbed wire design that's on her book cover.
The author wrote that she 'wished someone slightly browner' would tell the story
In an author's note included in the book, Cummins acknowledges she grappled with whether she should be the one to write it.
"I worried that my privilege would make me blind to certain truths, that I'd get things wrong, as I may well have. I worried that, as a nonmigrant and non-Mexican, I had no business writing a book set almost entirely in Mexico, set entirely among migrants. I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it," she says.
"But then, I thought, If you're a person who has the capacity to be a bridge, why not be a bridge? So I began."
Cummins, who has described herself as white, also says in the note that her Puerto Rican grandmother's experience coming to the United States inspired her....
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