Lydia
Pérez lives in Acapulco with her journalist husband and eight-year-old son,
Luca. Her husband is a journalist and she owns and runs a small bookstore. She
and her family have a good life, but the increasing activities of drug cartels
in Mexico are becoming impossible for her husband to ignore. He begins to write
of the events and corruption while others are choosing to remain silent for
fear of their lives.
Meanwhile,
in her bookstore, Lydia meets a charming and friendly customer. He becomes a
regular customer and dear friend. She has no idea who this man is until a
picture is printed in husband’s article. It is the ruthless leader of the most
lethal cartel.
During
a celebration at her home, her husband and entire family pay a price for her
husband’s exposé. Lydia and her son escape merely by chance. So begins a
harrowing ordeal as she attempts to escape to America and safety. The cartel
and its influence is everywhere. She can literally trust no one. She must
suppress the horror of what has happened and rely on her wits and instinct to
protect her son.
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins is
breath-taking. So fast-paced and beautifully written and researched, the reader
is on the journey with Lydia and Luca. It’s a novel of acute danger and
survival but also of the deep reserves of strength found when safeguarding
those we love.
There
has been controversy surrounding the fact that Cummins is not Mexican and that
there were what some considered insensitive remarks. Regardless, this is a superb
work of fiction based on the experiences of real people living in fear and
desperation. It’s a must read.
Highly
recommend.
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