American Dirt is simply magnificent. I absolutely adored this story despite the horrors it contains. my heart was pounding the whole time - can they get away to safety? will they be caught? will something else get in their way? I felt as though I was living this nightmare whilst reading.

‘In 2017, a migrant died every twenty-one hours along the United States-Mexico border.’

American Dirt is a novel that has a very clear and well-timed agenda, not just for the US, but for other countries too. This novel made me consider much about my own country and it’s offshore detention facilities and the way in which fear de-individualises people; how it works its way into the community, and then onto political agendas, consequently normalising intolerance and criminalising asylum seekers.

The lives of so many people in so many places around the world are horrific on an incomprehensible scale and those of us who are so fortunate to live in safety and comfort should seek ways to understand what it means to be a migrant; to fully appreciate that the lengths people go to when attempting to enter a country is measurable with their desperation and the risk against their lives, not because they are dishonest and trying to take a short cut. The corruption surrounding entry into the US via Mexico is tragic; the de-humanising resentment directed towards those who actually do make it across the border is even more so – I have read of this in more books than this one. I cannot believe we live in a world where citizens of a nation that uphold themselves as world leaders go ‘migrant hunting’. I am appalled at the lack of humanity and question the moral fabric of any society whose leaders turn a blind eye to this.

‘“The trucks look more like vigilantes than carteleros.”
“How can you tell?” Choncho asks.
“They’re not fancy enough to be narcos. And if they’re vigilantes, as I suspect, they’ve probably gone migrant-hunting up the trail on the far side. We wait here. They’ll eventually go back to the trucks and we can pass after they leave.”’

American Dirt is a powerful novel. While it examines the migration between Mexico and the US, the core themes are globally applicable. Never have I felt the weight of my Western privilege more than while reading this novel. Within every migrant beats a human heart. They are not other. They are us born elsewhere. Despite the controversy surrounding this novel, it does provide a catalyst for further reading.

‘She scrambles the few feet down the gravelly embankment to where the rusty red fence digs into the earth, and she wraps her fingers around two of the thick red posts and leans her forehead against the bars, and she can see very clearly then, that the fence is only a psychological barrier, and that the real impediment to crossing here is the technology on the other side. There’s a dirt road over there that follows the jagged landscape wherever it leads. The road is worn smooth by the regular accommodation of the heavy tires of the United States Border Patrol. Soledad cannot see them, but she can sense them there, just out of sight. She sees the evidence of their proximity in the whirring electronics mounted on tall poles that dot the hillsides. She doesn’t know what those contraptions are –cameras or sensors or lights or speakers –but whatever they are, she can sense that they’re aware of her presence. She sticks her hand through the fence and wiggles her fingers on the other side. Her fingers are in el norte. She spits through the fence. Only to leave a piece of herself there on American dirt.’

Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a NetGalley copy of American Dirt for review.

American Dirt is an incredible and emotional story that begins with the most violent and heart wrenching family massacre that leaves sixteen innocent victims dead during a family barbeque, birthday celebrations. Lydia Quixano Perez and her eight-year old son Lucas miraculously survive the massacre by hiding indoors, in the shower alcove. Lydia’s mother and husband have been murdered along with the rest of her family.

Lydia and Luca must now run for their lives and flee the country far away from the local drug cartel or succumb to an unimaginable and violent death. They bravely take a terrifying and long journey from their home of Acapulco, Mexico across the border to the USA.

This story is an illegal migrant journey of desperation and courage that is both terrifying and traumatic. This is a must read for 2020, it’s powerful, brutal, electrifying, educational and startling!

5★
“If there’s one good thing about terror, Lydia now understands, it’s that it’s more immediate than grief.”

She has an eight-year-old boy, Luca, and is running for her life, so she will have to set her grief aside until finding safety doesn’t consume her every thought. It is beyond my ken how people are able to lock away such powerful feelings into mental “boxes”.

I remember seeing a mother interviewed (much later) after her father had murdered all her children (as I recall), and she told how she learned, with a lot of help, how to close the box and just open it now and then to grieve. It was hard watching the interview; I can’t imagine actually living it.

The author describes Lydia’s protection of Luca in such a way that I immediately thought of Henry Moore’s beautiful, fluid sculptures of family wrapped around each other. She could be the young mother in Emma Donoghue's memorable novel Room.

“Mami pulls him close and folds him up, gets her legs beneath him so the knot of him is on her lap, and they stay like that for a long time. She doesn’t try to stop him from screaming or crying, she just hangs on and wraps herself around him as best she can. It has the feeling of riding out a hurricane.”

Mother and Child, Henry Moore, 1983-84

Grief certainly underlies this story, but what that carries us along at breakneck speed is her escape from her home in Acapulco, Mexico, to ‘el norte, los estados unidos’. She is being hunted by the cartels, one in particular, which I think is best described as a spiderweb with strands everywhere with spiders perched along it, ready to pluck the unwary passerby. But many of those spiders are camouflaged as innocent insects.

“On the trains, nobody is who they claim to be, a uniform seldom represents what it purports to represent. Half the people pretending to be migrants or coyotes or train engineers or police or ‘la migra’ are working for the cartel. Everybody’s on the take. Lydia knows all this because she and Sebastián watched a documentary about ‘la bestia’ last year on TV.”

The author explains the terrors of the train.

“The Beast” is so named because of the number of people who are maimed and killed every day when they fall, or are pushed, or are thrown from the tops of the moving railcars. The possible manners of death available on ‘la bestia’ are all gruesome: you can be crushed between two moving cars when the train rounds a bend. You can fall asleep, roll off the edge, get sucked beneath the wheels, have your legs sliced off.”

It is a spell-binding, hair-raising journey. Lydia befriends two young, teen-aged sisters who have already walked from their idyllic rainforest village in Honduras where they were at risk of being trafficked. The eldest is turning heads everywhere, and a couple of experienced women warn Lydia of the dangers.

“‘She’s so pretty, too. She’s going to have a rough journey.’

‘A lot of return trips to the cuerpomatico’ Neli agrees.
. . .
‘It means your body is an ATM machine.’
. . .
‘Rape? Is the price?’

Both women look at her blankly. They cannot believe this is news to her. Has she been living under a rock before now?”

Lydia takes it upon herself to act as a protector. Mothering is in her deepest bones. She and others form a defacto family group, loyal to each other, sharing what they have and sacrificing their own safety for each other. It is a story full of love.

But it is also a story full of betrayal, extortion, rape, heat, cold, thirst, hunger – the risks they can’t avoid. Unexpected kindness is offered by good samaritans and refugee aid centres along the way. An occasional bed, a drink, a meal, even internet access once in a while, keeps people alive, human, connected . . . and going. A night or two is all that’s allowed.

Crime and cartels make Mexico an unsafe destination for refugees from other countries. There are plenty of officials, police and otherwise, in uniforms, but so what? At one point, still in Acapulco. Lydia says:

“‘He’s going to kill me, too,’ she says, understanding only as these words emerge that they might be true.
The detective does not move to contradict her. He happens not to be on the cartel payroll, but many of his colleagues are. He’s not sure which ones, but it doesn’t matter. He trusts no one.
. . .
The unsolved crime rate in Mexico is well north of 90%. The costumed existence of the ‘policía’ provides the necessary counter-illusion to the fact of the cartel’s actual impunity.”

So let’s not ask why people don’t just stay where they are. When people shoot at you, you run. [A personal note.] (view spoiler)

This is a terrific read. I’ve seen it compared to John Steinbeck famous The Grapes of Wrath, about the Oklahoma dust bowl refugees fleeing to labour camps in California. I agree. I also think it’s reminiscent of the pilgrims who walk the (much shorter) Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain . . . except each individual is like the Fugitive of the American television series or thriller movie. On the run, terrified to stop but too exhausted not to.

"Author’s note: In 2017, a migrant died every twenty-one hours along the United States-Mexico border."

I expect this to be a prize-winner in 2020, and if they make a film (they’d be mad not to), it will be one heck of a ride!

Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Australia for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted. It is due to be published at the end of January 2020.

My Goodreads review includes maps:
FYI, for a comparison of distances, I copied a couple of maps, both roughly 1600 miles (2600km).

Roadmap from Acapulco to Nogales

Roadmap from New York to Houston TX

Honduras to the Texas border is half again as far - more than 2500 miles (over 4000 km).

The author’s website has a lot of information on the good people who are helping.
https://www.jeaninecummins.com/how-to-helppre/