Already being hailed as “a Grapes of Wrath for our times” and “a new American classic”, Tierra americana (American Dirt) is a rare exploration into the inner hearts of people willing to sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope.
(English edition: American Dirt / Jeanine Cummins / 9781250209764 [Flatiron Books, January 2020])
Lydia Quixano Perez is a bookseller living a quiet but fulfilling life with her family in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She develops a deep bond with a sensitive, intelligent man who frequents her store, and cannot believe it when her journalist husband reveals the truth: her mysterious poetry-writing friend is the top leader of the drug cartel that rules their beloved city. The man goes by the name la Lechuza, the Owl, and he is unafraid of making gruesome and fatal spectacles of anyone who opposes him.
When Lydia’s husband publishes a tell-all profile of the notorious leader, the Owl sends his gangsters to kill everyone they can find at a family gathering. Only Lydia and her eight-year-old son Luca survive, and they start running for their lives, imagining that it is only in the United States that they will be safe from the Owl’s deadly reach. The mother and son discover that all they have already seen is just the beginning, and the road to el norte is more perilous than they could ever dream.
Tierra americana will leave readers utterly changed when they finish reading it. It is a page-turner, it is a literary achievement, it is filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page. It is one of the most important books for our times.
