The <em>American Dirt</em> Controversy Is Painfully Intramural
Imagine if a controversial novel about a treacherous border crossing triggered a papal homily, or even a presidential tweet. Either scenario would suggest that public leaders are reckoning with the migrant crisis anew, thanks to a risk-taking work of fiction. Novels can have this power. Jeanine Cummins’s new novel American Dirt does not. The controversy the novel has provoked is not the controversy its subject needs.
The asymmetry of Cummins’s identity (she’s white and not an immigrant) and story (a Mexican woman’s flight to the United States with her son) has led to charges of racial and cultural appropriation and publishing-industry whitewashing. Cummins has noted that poses in its presumption to represent the migrant experience. Making matters worse, the novel is a commercial success: It won a seven-figure advance and was optioned for a film adaptation amid broader industry buzz, and it’s an Oprah Book Club selection. In response to criticism, Oprah has promised that her treatment of will also involve a conversation about “who gets to publish what stories.” Oprah’s decision to frame the debate on these insular terms is telling. This is fundamentally a fight about an industry; it’s about how book publishers do business, and with whom.
