American Dirt

Genre: Fiction

This is the story of Lydia and her son, Luca. The two live in Acapulco, Mexico and are on their way to the United States. Lydia's husband, a journalist, writes an expose about Javier, the head of a local drug cartel, and this causes an avalanche of sorrow for Javier and his family. Lydia is sure that this article will bring no harm to her and her family as she and Javier have become fast friends. He's a lover of books and she's a book store owner, and the two spend many hours together talking about books in her store. But, she is wrong. Javier retaliates in the worst of ways. Lydia and Luca must escape Javier and survive. There are many threats all around them as they make their arduous and long journey to illegally arrive in the US, but along the way they will befriend a few people who will help them, and meet the kindnesses of many others. This is a story of perseverance and learning that once we learn what is most important in life, everything else, including our fears, violence and deprivation, fades away.

This one will stay with me for a long time. It's well-written and the characters all do what they're supposed to do: elicit compassion at the right time, and anger and sadness at others. But mostly they serve the purpose of showing this incomprehensible situation in people's lives. This is a glimpse into the heartbreaking experience of wanting to escape somewhere and not being able to. For some of us, our country's borders act like cages and those cages encourage the dregs of the world to come out and sniff for blood. What if there were no walls, gates, fences? What if you could go wherever you wanted, whenever you wanted? I bet some of us would choose to remain exactly where we are, and others would choose to settle elsewhere. Don't we all have the human right to choose for ourselves? Please read this book. It's a beautiful portrait of what happens when humanity is constrained in ways that we just weren't meant to be.