POD: Book Clubs

American Dirt

Incredible or insulting

When American Dirt came out, it was an Oprah’s book club pick and became The Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. It was optioned for a film adaptation by Clint Eastwood and was lauded by many as the ‘great immigration novel’. However since then it has received harsh criticism, particularly from many Latinx writers for what they felt was its stereotypical portrait of migrants from Mexico and Central America. The controversy caused Jeanine Cummins to cancel her book tour and all events due to death threats and more.

There’s so much to discuss about this novel, so in addition to reading the book why not enrich your book club meeting by exploring the US/Mexico crisis further with podcasts and videos from the frontlines and discussions about the potential consequences of telling a story that is not your own.

Part of our ‘Beyond the Book’ Series. View

PODCASTS

Interview with Jeanine Cummins

(36 mins )

Jeanine Cummins discusses her book with the Moms Don’t Have Time To Read Books Podcast.

Play

Digging Into ‘American Dirt’

(53 mins)

The novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins was released this January with much anticipation. Oprah selected it to be part of her book club, writer Don Winslow called it, “a Grapes of Wrath for our times” and celebrated Latina author Sandra Cisneros called it “the great novel of las Americas.” But its release was met with a large backlash. Many Latinx writers felt the book furthered a stereotypical view of migrants from Mexico and Central America. For this episode, Maria Hinojosa engages in dialogue with voices central to the controversy: Myriam Gurba, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Alberto Urrea and Jeanine Cummins.

Play

The Out Crowd

(1 hr 6 mins)

Listen to real reports from the frontlines of the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy. We hear from asylum seekers waiting across the border in Mexico, in a makeshift refugee camp, and from the officers who sent them there to wait in the first place. This episode won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting, the first ever given for audio journalism.

Play

VIDEOS

Riding ‘the beast’

(4 mins)

A short video showing the conditions migrants experience on the ‘La Bestia’ freight train.

Watch

The U.S.-Mexico migrant crisis. What is really happening at the border?

(7 mins)

The humanitarian crisis along America’s southern border is a reality, but it is not so much due to the volume of migrants, but rather the demographic shift in the people U.S. border agents are intercepting. Since 2000, the number of migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. as dropped drastically. So what is leading to the current crisis?

Watch

What’s so controversial about ‘American Dirt’?

(25 mins )

The newly published novel – written by an author who is neither Mexican nor a migrant – is now at the centre of a debate over who gets to tell the stories of historically marginalised people and the issues that can result from a lack of diversity in a white-dominated US publishing industry. Cummins says the intent of the book was to humanise the US conversation around immigration. But, critics online say the book is rife with Mexican stereotypes and cultural misrepresentations. This episode discusses reactions to the book and what the publishing industry should do to highlight the stories of underrepresented communities.

Watch

ARTICLES

Why Is Everyone Arguing About the Novel American Dirt?

A good summary of the controversy. By Rebecca Alter for Vulture.com

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Book Club Questions for American Dirt

Great questions for your book club, covering all the key plot points as well as the public outcry surrounding this novel. From bookclubchat.com

Read Article

XTRA

Jeanine Cummins website

The Vanishing Half

Family and identity

From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, Brit Bennett produces a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past, as it shapes decisions, desires and expectations, and explores the multiple reasons why people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Part of our ‘Beyond the Book’ Series. View

Girl, Woman, Other

Dazzling and masterful

This is Britain as you’ve never read it. This is Britain as it has never been told. From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They’re each looking for something – a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .

Winner of the Booker Prize 2019

‘Beautifully interwoven stories of identity, race, womanhood, and the realities of modern Britain’

Part of our ‘Beyond the Book’ Series. View

The Law of the Heart

A powerful love story

Boris Starling is an award-winning novelist, non-fiction writer and screenwriter who has reached the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. His debut novel Messiah was made into a primetime BBC1 series which ran for five seasons. The Law of the Heart is his ninth novel and inspiration for the title comes from ‘one of the foundations of modern cardiac medicine… known as the law of the heart’, first published by his great grandfather Ernest Starling in 1912.

For rollercoaster designer Theo, living on the edge is just part of the job. He’s used to wandering the world perfecting thrills, his heart immune to commitment. But then a commission in repressive North Korea exposes him to emotions he’s never dared to feel. Tour guide Min has a soul that wants to soar, but she knows it’s safer to build walls around her heart and mind. Skilled in showcasing the mesmerising beauty of capital city Pyongyang without revealing its darker secrets, she introduces Theo to a country he will never forget―and begins to question her policy of quiet compliance.

Part of our ‘Beyond the Book’ Series. View

American Dirt

Incredible or insulting

PODCASTS

(36 mins )

(53 mins)

Kindle Paperwhite

(1 hr 6 mins)

VIDEOS

(4 mins)

(7 mins)

(25 mins )

HelloFresh meal plan offers

ARTICLES

XTRA

Jeanine Cummins website

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