For the last few years, the majority of the conversation around diversity and inclusion in book publishing has happened in the Children’s Lit and YA world, where the debate over hiring sensitivity readers has grown especially heated. Obviously, authors of books meant from a young, impressionable audience should be especially mindful about both inclusion and harmful tropes and characterizations. But I was beginning to wonder why we weren’t talking about that more in the adult-sphere.
Then American Dirt happened.
Unlike the other book scandals that I’ve recapped thus far where I was looking at them in the rearview, this one I followed in real time, rather breathlessly I have to admit. I remember meeting with a good author friend around this time for lunch (in a café! With no masks on! We hugged hello! Remember those times?) and parsing the whole thing. I just kept thinking: what would I tell Jeanine Cummins if I was her publicist? And what would I do if I were this author?
Those are the questions I’m going to attempt to answer today in a new feature I’m calling Monday Morning Publicist.
I want to be clear that I’m not writing this to pile on Cummins or to somehow claim I’m the authority on Latinx representation in books. If you’ve been following this scandal, you’ve read plenty of critiques of how she and the publisher handled it. Today, I’m attempting to think through what a more helpful response might have looked like.
Let’s Dig In
You’re forgiven for forgetting the details of this since it happened way back in January of this year, approximately a century ago. So, I’ll start with a quick recap of what happened.
American Dirt came out January 21st from Flatiron Books. This novel by Jeanine Cummins follows a Mexican bookseller who is forced to flee her home in Acapulco and try to cross into the US with her young son after her journalist husband is murdered by a drug cartel whose activities he’s been reporting on.
The hype around this book was deafening – with blurbs from Stephen King, Anne Patchett, and Sandra Cisneros who called it “the great novel of las Americas”. Don Winslow called it “a grapes of wrath for our times”. It received support from prominent Latinx writers such as Julia Alvarez, who predicted the book would “change hearts and transform policies.”
The book was originally sold at auction where it received a seven-figure advance and it was basically given every bit of marketing push a book could possibly get. It was an early favorite of booksellers and a star at BEA where that infamous flower arrangement happened. Things truly hit a fever pitch when it was named as an Oprah Book Club pick.
The Backlash
The backlash to the book kicked off with a scathing review from Mexican-American writer Myriam Gurba about a month before publication. Gurba’s review didn’t pick up much steam at first but went viral after Oprah made her pick and several Latinx celebrities promoted the book. This was followed by a charged New York Times opinion piece from author David Bowles.
Now, I truly could go on and on recapping each piece of this scandal. I read everything I could and even signed up for Apple+ so I could watch the Oprah roundtable discussion (pretty meh IMO). I’ve included a round-up below, but if you listen to ONE thing about this book, I recommend Maria Hinajosa’s interview with the key players—including Cummins—it’s truly one of the more compelling pieces of radio I’ve ever heard.
What’s the Beef?
There’s nuance here but there were really four big sticking points as far as I could tell:
· The Author’s identity. Critics claimed that though Cummins had previously identified herself as white—notably in a 2015 op-ed in the NYT— she began saying she was ‘white and Latinx’ in the prepublication lead-up. She also mentions in her author’s note that she wishes someone ‘slightly browner’ than her had written the book (which leads me to believe she anticipated some of this criticism). The publisher was also accused of playing up the fact that Jeanine’s husband is formerly “undocumented” which critics felt was misleading given that he’s from Ireland. Jeanine also mentions this in her author’s note.
· The positioning of the book. This book was not labeled as a book about the border but the book about the border—as told to us by a white writer who has no personal connection to Mexico. In a note that went out with the galleys, the publisher introduced the book as ‘giving a face to faceless’ and Jeannine herself used the term ‘faceless brown mass’ to describe the way that Americans see people at the border. Many critics felt that this was a book written for white people—or as Gurba called ‘trauma porn wearing a fig leaf of social justice’—and that that’s why it sold for so much money. To see it positioned as a definitive account felt like a slap in the face to many Latinx writers.
· The book itself: Many readers felt the book trafficked in stereotypes, and that the author didn’t do enough research, leading to some jarring inaccuracies and Spanish malapropisms. The most damning accusations suggested that Cummins actually cribbed parts of the book from Luis Alberto Urrea and Sonia Nazario, two authors she cites as inspiration.
· Publishing’s Overall Treatment of Latinx Writers: The huge advance and the massive marketing push around the book emphasized the ways in which Latinx writers are pushed to the margins of the publishing industry. According to the Lee & Lowe 2019 survey: Latinx folks comprise only 3% of the publishing industry. Many Latinx writers reported being routinely told that their stories don’t have wide enough appeal to be published in a big way, or published at all. Luis Alberto Urrea’s book—which Cummins said inspired her—was rejected for ten straight years and given feedback such as: ‘nobody cares about starving Mexicans’ and ‘no American reader is going to read a book with a name as strange as yours’. This was back in the 90’s but sadly, it’s unclear that things have changed much.
I want to emphasize here that NO ONE said that Cummins shouldn’t have tried to write about Mexico or the boarder, just that she missed the mark. David Bowles, one of her most prominent critics, said this.
“There is nothing wrong with a non-Mexican writing about the plight of Mexicans. What’s wrong is erasing authentic voices to sell an inaccurate cultural appropriation for millions.”-
So, What Happened?
The publisher ended up cancelling Cummins’ 40-city book tour citing ‘safety concerns’ and apologized for ‘serious mistakes’ in the positioning of the book. The publisher didn’t specify what threats were made, and this further enraged some critics who saw an implication that the Latinx literary community critical of this book was somehow inherently dangerous. It’s worth nothing that Myriam Gurba received numerous death threats after her review and subsequent commentary.
The folks from Flatiron met with Dignidad Literaria—a group formed to address some of the concerns brought up about the industry by this publication and which included both Gurba and Bowles. Obviously, the pandemic broke out right after this and now publishers across the board are facing a reckoning over their issue with race and representation, so we shall see what comes of that.
Monday Morning Publicist
I should start by saying that I have not actually read this book. Given everything I read about this book before it came out, I just thought there was no way I could digest it with an open mind. The point here is not for me to say if and by how much Jeanine Cummins got it wrong with American Dirt—that’s been covered by the far more qualified people I’ve namechecked here, among others. Nor am I intending to pile on Cummins just for the sake of it; I have empathy for her even as I thought some of her responses were misguided. What I want to do here is play out the thought exercise of what I might have done—or advised her to do as her publicist—if I happened to find myself in this particular hot seat.
Prepare
I began this series by talking about sensitivity readers—one of many tools a writer might rely upon when writing about a culture that they’re not a part of. Such tools, in addition to lots of research, may help you prepare your actual work so it doesn’t feature some of the jarring inconsistencies critics picked up with American Dirt.
In addition to preparing the book itself, however, if you’re writing about a hot-button topic, you need to prepare for possible controversy, to think of the possible criticisms and how you’ll respond far in advance of the publication date.
I went through this with my last novel We Came Here to Forget because I was dealing with a sensitive issue—Munchausen by Proxy— that is widely misunderstood and mischaracterized. I thought about all the ways I might get questioned about this and what I wanted to say, which let me keep my cool and take the most advantage of the platform I was given to discuss it.
If there’s an issue you’re hoping to raise awareness about in addition to telling a good story with your novel, think about what you hope to get across and write some talking points for yourself that you can keep coming back to.
Note that this strategy isn’t a question of turning the conversation back to your intentions or deflecting but of making sure that you’re using whatever platform in the best possible way.
For example, Cummins could have pointed to the stats around migration each time she talked about this controversy as well as pointing to those statistics I’ve mentioned here about publishing’s inequity itself. She was assuredly aware of the latter as she alludes to it in her author’s note and because she worked for Penguin Publishing for ten years, so she was not naïve about the industry going in.
Give a Good Apology
If you think you have something to apologize for, of course. If you don’t, then stand by what you’ve put out there. The world doesn’t need more bullshit apologies, that’s for sure. I’d much prefer people say what they mean in the public sphere.
At any rate, assuming Cummins found some validity to her critics’ arguments, she could have referred to the apology section of White Fragility which gives an extremely helpful framework for apologizing for missteps, and which I’m cribbing from here.
· First: Vent to a friend who will listen and give you honest feedback. Get all of your feelings out of the way and figure out what you may need to answer for.
· Second: Apologize for the impact of your actions and show understanding for the actual problem at hand. Resist the urge to deflect by saying things like “that wasn’t my intent” or “I’m sorry people were offended”.
· Thank your critics: I love this step because it’s really this last part that creates an opportunity to move forward. It takes courage to call someone to account, especially when you’re an author (as most of these critics are) and on the other side of the debate is a major publisher and Oprah-freaking-Winfrey. Also, most of us want to know if we’ve done harm, difficult as that is to hear, so gratitude is actually an appropriate response.
In the interviews with Jeanine throughout the controversy, she sounded defensive and shell-shocked, as though she were working through step one on mic. These are completely understandable reactions, but things she’d have benefitted from tackling privately. She talked about how upset she was, what she’d meant to do, and even tried to redirect at one point to say that she was broke when she was working in publishing and had to bartend, which felt to me as though she was leaning on the well-worn trope of “class is the real issue here”. (I’m not saying that was her intention mind you, just how it read to me).
She also invoked the idea that people were trying to “silence” her and that writers should be allowed to write about whatever interests them, which—say it with me—not one single person was saying she shouldn’t have.
Again, my intention here isn’t to demonize Jeanine Cummins or pick on her. I just kept wanting her to take this opportunity by the reins and move the issue of how marginalized Latinx authors are to the forefront, rather than continuing to point out that this fact was not her fault.
Make it Right
In general, I’m all for making donations and doing good deeds privately rather than feeling the need to immediately announce your good works all over social media. But this is an exception. I would have advised Cummins to make a big donation, do it publicly, and do it quickly. Perhaps even calling on Oprah and Flatiron to match her in it.
Cummins has claimed to financially support some of the organizations she worked with during the course of writing the book (listed here on her website) and I believe her, but I can’t understand why she demurred to say where and how much she’d donated when initially asked. In this case, it’s less a question of bragging than a show of good faith to the communities who’ve been hurt.
I also would have suggested making donations to places that serve migrants and places like We Need Diverse Books, Latinx in Publishing, and People of Color in Publishing. Doing so publicly in the midst of such a high-profile scandal could have helped raise the profile of those organizations, hopefully encouraging others to donate as well. It’s also just a public show of good faith.
Again, I’m not saying that Cummins hasn’t donated money, and indeed I saw on Twitter (in one of her only tweets since the scandal took hold) that she was offering matching donations for up to 100k to the International Rescue Committee. Which is awesome! My argument here is that there is a time and place for a swift and public move to put your money where your mouth is and I wish she’d taken it.
In the End
While this seemed like HUGE controversy in the publishing world, it’s worth nothing that American Dirt has spent many weeks at number one on the New York Times bestseller list and remains there today. It appears the overall impact of the book is what one would expect from any Oprah pick, scandal or no. The book has racked up almost 14k reviews on Amazon, averaging 4.5 stars, and a whopping 158k reviews on Goodreads with a 4.3-star average.
This tells us that many, many people bought this book and loved it. I’m sure it felt awful to be in Jeanine’s shoes last January, but whether it actually impacted her career negatively in a lasting way I’m not so sure.
Conclusion
So. The book was hyped, there was a considerable skirmish, it still sold like hotcakes. What’s the takeaway?
I can’t speak for Cummins or speculate on how she might be feeling about all of this at this point, but it’s generally true that most authors aren’t cold-blooded capitalists. Most of us care about the impact of our words quite a lot. We care about telling our stories in a way that will resonate and hopefully not in a way that will harm.
My advice to authors who find themselves a bit anxious about all of this is to be brave and write what compels you and to understand if you have a mega-hyped book about a hot button issue, you should be prepared for possible blowback.
And should you find yourself on the defense, realize that being called out is an opportunity, even if it’s a hard one. I believe that it’s possible to engage in these conversations in a meaningful way, especially with people who are offering thoughtful critique, and not just trolling.
I wanted to write about this because I don’t think the system sets authors up for success on this front. There are so many wonderful, smart people in publishing, but because of systemic issues in the industry, many are ill-equipped to see these things coming. It’s always going to be the book and the author that people associate with the scandal, rather than the publisher. Proceed accordingly.
Read More:
Myriam Gurba’s original review / Tropics of Meta
Publishing’s American Dirt Problem/ Publisher’s Weekly
Flatiron Cancels American Dirt Tour / Publisher’s Weekly
Latino Response to American Dirt / LA Times
American Dirt: Dignity & Equity / David Bowles, Medium
How Not to Write a Book About a Minority Experience / The Walrus