“In short order, Jeanine Cummins’ novel American Dirt went from being hailed as “The Grapes of Wrath for our time” to being lambasted for misrepresenting the Mexican American experience it claimed to document.
“As a result of the uproar, its publisher, Flatiron Books, canceled a planned book tour out of concern over the potential for “real peril” to both Cummins and booksellers.
“Flatiron President Bob Miller also issued a public apology for “serious mistakes,” the publisher made in marketing American Dirt, ranging from the barbed wire centerpieces that decorated the tables of the book’s launch party to the claim that the novel “defined the migrant experience.”
“The publisher also erred in describing Cummins’ husband as an “undocumented immigrant” without specifying that he was from Ireland.”
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