The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

We've had quite a bit of discussion about American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins already in the 2020 Booker Prize Speculation thread. (starting somewhere on Page 5, I believe: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... )

There are still plenty of posts, articles, etc being posted all over the web, so the discussion can continue here unless/until it gets listed for the Booker Prize.

Go for it!

Here goes.

There is an article which is widely quoted, particularly below people who have not read the book, showing all the inaccuracies in the book and why they are therefore not reading it.

https://thebluenib.com/a-poor-imitati...

I read the article and decided to read the book anyway.

A lot of the article makes sense (although I suspect the average thriller has far more anomalies) but some of it I can only describe as (being polite) misleading.

From the article (my emphasis)

"Lydia and her son decide to escape Acapulco by riding northward atop the freight train known as La Bestia, described as the one place out of reach of the drug traffickers. In reality, this train is practically controlled by organized crime. Members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang regularly climb aboard, rape female travelers and rob the migrants blind. Those who refuse to cooperate are thrown to their death. These horrific realities are glaringly absent from Cummins’ tale."

From the first time La Bestia is mentioned in American Dirt:

"The train has earned the name La Bestia because that journey is a mission of terror in every way imaginable. Violence and kidnapping are endemic along the tracks"

The second time

"Robbery is a foregone conclusion. Mass abductions for ransom are commonplace. Often, kidnappers torture their victims to help persuade the families to pay. Half of the people pretending to be migrants or coyotes or train engineers or police of la migra are working for the cartel .... La Bestia is controlled by the cartels"

When she first meets others who have already travelled on La Bestia on previous journeys, they discuss in front of her how many times they have each been raped.

On the train itself Lydia and her friends are robbed and two females she is with are repeatedly raped.

Glaringly absent?

OR a smaller one

From the article:

Mexico is depicted as a one-dimensional nation, irredeemably corrupt and violent, while the United States of American Dirt is a fantasy land: a country free of gun violence, hate groups and organized crime

From the book:

The first group of Americans they encounter is a group of armed vigilantes looking to kill migrants

The other famous article again widely quoted is this one

https://tropicsofmeta.com/2019/12/12/...

Again pls try of excellent points but one which is widely quoted (try Googling it) is around an ice rink. For example from NPR.org

“Writer Myriam Gurba, another critic of the book, pointed out a particular inauthenticity: "There is a scene where the main character encounters an ice rink. And she's utterly shocked at the existence of this ice rink, as if she's unaware that winter sports are played in Mexico. And I was laughing," Gurba says. "I laughed out loud when I got to that section because I learned to ice skate in Mexico. I learned to ice skate at age 9 in Guadalajara."

The actual passage is

The commuter rail station is located at one end of a vast shopping mall with a Sephora and a Panda Express and even an ice rink.

I don’t see any shock - the sense for me was off the incongruity of their journey in La Bestia starting out at a prosperous shopping centre.

I think many of the criticisms of the book are very valid but if you are going to try and pick up on every little inaccuracy in the book then I think your own article needs to be accurate. And it disappoints me when others then quote those articles without having verified the criticisms for themselves.

Hey Gumble,

I am going to have to read it b/c I've seen some straight-up nitpicking and some seemingly valid points. The idea that I HAVE to read anything galls me, but I do plan on doing exactly that or I remain ignorant.

The thing about the ice rink, if it's only mentioned in what you quote (this is from the "(bad word) You Ain’t Steinbeck" essay by Myriam Gurba?) seems particularly nitpicky. I've heard her speak on this now several times (I swear NPR must not have any other books to discuss - it's all AmDirt all the time!) She's angry, and I can get that, but these types of little things do serve to create a "black/brown people mad at white person who wrote book" idea, at least in my black (but white-looking, or so I'm told) head. IOW, I think it doesn't serve anyone to pick on tiny inaccuracies when large ones exist. Much as I respect David Bowles, I've read things from both him & Gurba that feel somewhat beyond nitpicky - into just another terrain I can't really explain, but I don't find it helpful to the discussion.

By the way - your point about the woman being simply an american, or mine about the book being simply labeled as a thriller are agreed to by Myriam Gurba in a terrific radio piece that also includes Cisneros, Urrea & Cummins herself. I think it's probably the most nuanced thing I've heard on this book yet, and I'd suggest a listen for anyone who is interested, assuming you can get NPR in the UK. It's called "Digging into American Dirt" on Latina USA from NPR hosted by Maria Hinojosa & found here: https://www.latinousa.org/2020/01/29/... Gurba is first up, but then we get Cisneros who is positive about the book, followed by Urrea & finishing up with Cummins who answers some tough questions. I do think it's very much worth a listen b/c of the many viewpoints and good questions from Hinojosa.

I am genuinely confused about how they end up on La Bestia though. From what I understand, they have money/access to an ATM card w/ more money, etc, and they start off in Acapulco? Geographically I can't figure that out, but moreover, I can't figure out why they have to travel across a huge country to board a notoriously dangerous train when they have access to money. Money is the thing that can get anyone across the border on a plane! Since I've got a very long wait for the book, can you splain that to me?

Also not just to Gumble but for anyone:

more links I found very worthy:

There’s Nothing Thrilling About Trauma
By Ingrid Rojas Contreras
https://www.thecut.com/2020/02/why-is...

And more generally about this issue overall:
American Dirt Is A Problem. So What’s The Solution?
Patrice Caldwell
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/amer...

finally not at all about this book, but a great piece that touches on the whole fraught issue:

The Banality of Empathy
Namwali Serpell
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/03...

This an interesting tangent from the controversy, one of those long Twitter threads that is to all intents a blog post - about Mexican and Mexican-American literatures by a professor of them:
https://twitter.com/isanchezprado/sta...
(I didn't know previously about their distinctiveness from one another.) Towards the end lists a number of books, the newer ones of which will be familiar to people who follow the translation presses and prizes discussed in this group.

Antonomasia wrote: "This an interesting tangent from the controversy, one of those long Twitter threads that is to all intents a blog post - about Mexican and Mexican-American literatures by a professor of them:
(I didn't know previously about their distinctiveness from one another.) ..."

Thanks for that link! Why do I miss all the interesting twitters?

Silly story w/ a point:
I need to be better at understanding how very different this would look from any other country. It reminds me of an advertisement here on one of the Spanish-language channels that came on while a British friend was staying at my house several years ago. He was playing a computer game & I was watching TV - being lazy.

The ad itself was in English (Spanish Lang channels have about 50% adverts in english w/ spanish subtitles sometimes but all programming is in Spanish.) A man comes into a cooking class and introduces himself as "Mr Green" here to sub for the usual cooking teacher "Señora Rosita" or something equally ridiculous (the whole ad is silly - which is the point.) Don't worry, he says, she's left me instructions & picks up a paper. From it he reads aloud: "today we're going to learn the secrets of pie pie PIE-EL-uh." (paella)

I cracked up laughing and the ad ends with all the "students" looking at each other almost terrified of what is about to happen. (No idea what the advert was for - but the theme was "don't take any substitutions for the real thing.")

The point of me telling you all this is that my very British friend (called Jez - a name never heard in the US) said, "what is so funny?" Then we sat and discussed the way one would be seen to be absurd in London if ordering paella the way I say it (which is the way all Americans would say - the spanish way.) He thought I would be treated like a pompous jerk in the UK and I said I thought he would be treated like an ignorant fool in the US if he said "pie-ela." It was a 10 second conversation and that was that.

About a year later a British judge (Toby someone? Famous restaurant critic) came to a US cooking show as a part-time judge and the judges threw down b/c Toby called them all pretentious for saying paella the way we say it. (It didn't help that at least one of the judges is latina.)

Point being - I'd imagine all of this may seem absurd or over the top anywhere w/o such a large and real latinx population. Just last night, I stopped in a new place to get carry-out & spoke spanish whilst watching figure skating w/ a bunch of non-latinx people b/c the bartender happened to be latino & they were already speaking spanish when I came in to order.

Everyone can speak at least a bit of spanish here. All the signs are in both languages. I'm not in a border state or NY. Maryland doesn't have a very large Latinx population in the scheme of things, but this is just the way it is here. Now imagine you are an american citizen who has written this story in some way and tried to sell a book -- no bidding war, no Oprah, no film. In fact, you've been told to change your name to something more anglicized and play down your heritage. That's what these Mexican-American authors are so very upset about. Or at least one part of it.

PS: I found this while reading the thread Anto suggests:

Good-sounding news, if it pans out at all:
https://twitter.com/Claribel_Ortega/s...

That's great seeing something positive coming out of this. I hope these things actually get done.

I always hesitate to explain the plot of any thriller as they are never terribly coherent. In the days many years ago when I watched Hollywood blockbusters I don’t think I saw a single film whose plot stood up to even five seconds scrutiny.

But here goes ...

They have to flee Acapulco as quickly and anonymously as possible as there are road blocks setup specifically to find them (the dead father having written an article about the local cartel boss with terrible consequences for the latter)

When they get to Mexico City she is reluctant to try and get a flight as she is worried about being traced - but decides to give it a go only to be turned down as she has no ID or proof for her son which she can only get by returning to their home state.

Yes the ice rink is the only reference and I think it’s l as nitpicky but more based on a misunderstanding of the particular nuance intended by the author, by a reviewer very upset about the book for legitimate reasons and so inclined to interpret everything in the worse possible way.

The Blue Nib article you can judge that one for yourself on the straight quotes I have given from the article and the book, but it just seems to me to out almost the exact opposite of what’s actually in the book and I cannot see how anyone could interpret it the other way.

Gumble's Yard wrote: "The Blue Nib article you can judge that one for yourself on the straight quotes ..."

That's frustrating for a variety of reasons, not least is that I've shared that link. :-(

This is what I mean by something more than nitpicky and terrifically unhelpful at best. I really do not want to buy the book, but I'm guessing there will be a few at the used bookstore where I have credit long before the library has a copy available, or my sister will buy it. She loves Oprah.

Anto - that thread literally reads like a booklist of spanish-language books we've read recently! It's funny. Somehow I feel like w/ these small publishers, the books are almost a secret if they're not listed on prize lists or whatever. Of course, he kept himself to those translated, but that was such a familiar list! I will say this - Mexican-American literature and the literature that gets translated really does seem very different to just regular Mexican/central/south american literature. I think he said it clearly in that thread: the publishing world/translating English world seems to be looking for a specific type of story (jhardship, often depressing, poverty...) but Mexico is full of family and happiness and people unafraid to show their love, openness and people who are willing to try anything/really hustle. It's a very vibrant culture that you might miss from the books translated to English. It's not a utopia, but I always think there is so much good we could learn from Méxican culture specifically. The saddest part of this is that this downer image seems to seep in no matter what we all know. (Partly the sadness is about literary books rather than more popular ones, maybe.) Anyway - thanks for the thread!

Ella wrote: "About a year later a British judge (Toby someone? Famous restaurant critic) came to a US cooking show as a part-time judge and the judges threw down b/c Toby called them all pretentious for saying paella the way we say it. (It didn't help that at least one of the judges is latina.)."

Such British snob arrogance! A search suggests this was Toby Young, a right-wing controversialist; he probably did it knowingly to get the publicity.

There is a similar British thing with the pronunciation of chorizo. I'm not sure I've ever had to say "chorizo" aloud outside school Spanish classes - which were long before chorizo became fashionable here, and were where I first heard of the stuff. If I did it wasn't in front of anyone who thought it pretentious to say the Castilian "th" albeit with very English vowels. (Paella was already a normal dish when I was a kid, pronounced as you mention Brits do.)

A few years ago there was a bit of fuss over the pronunciation of chorizo on TV, e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39735870

Perhaps people will start pronouncing it more Spanishly as the generation among whom Spanish is the commonest language learnt at school grows up.

Ella wrote: "The Banality of Empathy
Namwali Serpell
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/03... "

This was great.

I get tired of seeing people trotting out that study suggesting that literary fiction improves empathy, unaware that it failed to replicate. (People online generally, not seen it in the group.)
All the conflicts that happen in litfic communities show it's hardly a panacea either.

This essay gives more philosophical underpinnings to these arguments.

Antonomasia wrote: "Ella wrote: "The Banality of Empathy
Namwali Serpell
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/03... "

This was great.

I get tired of seeing people trotting out that study suggesting that literary fict..."

Interestingly, I did not learn of this article from book groups/people, but at work - where we'd been arguing about the very neuropsych studies she references in the piece. (Once again the world seems to shrink by the day.)

Anyone else get an email/PM from Flatiron about a different book on a similar theme recently?

Anyway, these "death threats" that they cancelled Cummins tour because of have felt weird to me, and I think I've mentioned that somewhere (maybe here) before. I bring you this from the Guardian & Roxanne Gay:

‘Real censorship’: Roxane Gay responds to American Dirt death threat row
The author argues the debate around Jeanine Cummins’ controversial novel shows how people are threatened for ‘daring to have opinions’

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

while critics of Cummins’ work have received death threats, Flatiron had admitted the author herself had received none.

Yeah, this is a particularly bad bit of the row.

But the Latinx group Dignidad Literaria, which was formed by writers in response to the controversy, claimed that while critics of Cummins’ work have received death threats, Flatiron had admitted the author herself had received none. When asked for confirmation, Flatiron insisted on the accuracy of the statement they issued in January, which described “specific threats to booksellers and the author” that constituted “real peril to their safety”.

I had always assumed that Flatiron were really loading it on with "threats" in the initial announcement and that the actual danger was protests (so signs, a bit of yelling and disruption) and publicity for the book being taken over by that. If one takes "peril to one's safety" as "stress" they could also just be using a contemporary definition prevalent on social media.
Then the activists seemed to show they had.
Then Flatiron contradicted them here.

*If* Flatiron are still being disingenuous I think it would show Cummins in a good light if she were to actually say no they haven't had actual death threats. Though she's probably not allowed to talk to the media on her own at the moment anyway, it might have to be years later in some retrospective interview.

But who knows what they might have received by email or phone from random angry and unhinged members of the public, or alt-right anons trying to make the left look bad - although the authors, academics, critics and others who've been leading the online protests haven't done anything like that.

Antonomasia wrote: "Yeah, this is a particularly bad bit of the row. "

Yes. This seems like it will be ongoing and increasingly nasty unless everyone takes a big deep breath at the same time.

At this point it really feels like Flatiron have left Cummins to fend for herself for the most part & they're just reaping financial rewards, which makes me sick.

I feel sure that things were ugly, and getting uglier, and by now I'd guess everyone's had a few death threats. But I can understand the thing about minorities getting death threats just for speaking up - it happens far more often than I'd like to admit. Usually it comes with an "if you hate it here so much, go back to [insert wrong country that threat-maker has decided arbitrarily you belong to]." I don't know if this happens in other, less "rah rah patriotism" countries, but it's always a bad look.