Reading List

 

I always take a book or two with me when I travel.  I pass the time while waiting at the airports and on the plane by reading.  I also read a few pages each night before I turn off the light.  On my recent seven-week trip to Mexico I went through two books.

The first book, "American Dirt" by Jeanine Cummins, was the center of controversy when it was published in 2020.  The protagonist of the novel is Lydia, the wife of journalist in Acapulco.  She leads a comfortable life until her husband publishes an expose on the leader of a local drug cartel.  The family is gunned down by the cartel.  Lydia and her eight-year-old son are the only survivors.  She knows that their lives are in danger, and the two make the harrowing journey as undocumented immigrants north to the U.S. border.

Although it was praised by HIspanic writers such as Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez, other Latinos were angered that a "gringa" received a million-dollar contract to write about the immigrant experience when so many Hispanic writers are ignored by the publishing houses.  One criticism that I think is valid is the author's choice of an educated, middle-class woman as the protagonist.  That choice makes the issue of undocumented immigrants more palatable to U.S. readers... as if her flight to the north is more deserving of sympathy than the countless others who have to leave their homes.  

However, the danger faced by Mexican journalists, whether they are writing about the cartels or exposing government corruption, is very real.  In 2021 seven journalist were murdered, and five more have died in the first months of 2022.  The President has largely ignored the issue.

Is "American Dirt" an important book?  Well, it is certainly a page-turner, but I think it may be more melodrama than great literature.  One critic praised it as "'The Grapes of Wrath' for our times", but I consider that hyperbole.

The second novel that I read, "The Four Winds" by Kristin Hannah, is also about a perilous journey and might rightfully be compared to "The Grapes of Wrath".  Like the great Steinbeck novel, this book also takes place during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.  Elsa, a Texas farmwife, who has been abandoned by her husband, decides that she must pack up the truck, take her two children, and head to the "promised land" of California.  There they are met by the harsh reality that the migrants are all viewed as filthy "Okies".  They live in deplorable conditions in roadside camps and are exploited by the landowners.  It's been a long time since I read "The Grapes of Wrath" or even watched the movie, but I can say that I was very moved by this novel.

Right now, I am reading the 1998 Pulitizer-prize winning, non-fiction book, "Guns, Germs and Steel" by geography professor Jared Diamond.  In this book the author tries to explain why some human societies, most notably in Europe and Asia, have advanced while others have not.  The author rejects any suggestion of racial superiority.  The typical inhabitant of the New Guinea highlands is no less intelligent than someone from Europe, Japan or the U.S.  That New Guinean has a vast store of knowledge that enables him to live in his remote homeland... while the Westerner would struggle to survive there.  Instead, the author looks at the geographic and environmental reasons why some peoples made technological progress while others remained hunter-gatherers.  It is interesting, but not easy reading.  I should be finished with it before I leave again for Mexico next month.  

A trip to the bookstore was necessary, and I now have a selection of more books from which to choose for my next journey.