a bunch of stuff happens

New novel titled

American Dirt

controversial

recommended by Oprah

"It's been a long time since I turned pages as fast as I did with American Dirt."
  ~  John Grisham

USA Today says the book is "problematic."

The Guardian online has a review of the book, written by André Wheeler.  A Reader Comment under the review:


KevinSanFrancisco

Can a work of fiction legitimately be rejected for being "divisive," as the reviewer of this novel does here?  Is fiction supposed to "bring us together"?    I f***king hope not -- I'd cross the street running to get away from s**t like that!  

Both life and first-rate fiction are not a Tom Hanks movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and co-starring Morgan Freeman.  

Check out the eager use of the word "divisive" by the paper of record of the U.S. ruling class, the New York Times, whenever the Gray Lady encounters anything that draws potentially disruptive attention to the fact that we live in a deeply inegalitarian and exploitative catastrophe of a class society.  

A good novel isn't here to massage our needs and insecurities; it should shake us and unnerve us.  If it isn't doing that then it isn't doing jack.



The big question with this novel as with any novel is whether this novel is any good as a work of fiction.  I haven't read it yet, so that's not for me to say.  Maybe this is 'Crime and Punishment' meets 'Breathing Lessons.'  Maybe it's not.  

Unfortunately the Iron Law of contemporary United States fiction is that it can almost all be summed up in five words:  a bunch of stuff happens -- no one fights for a cause that is bigger and better than they are.  Nobody really steps out of line.  Is that happening with this work?  

Or is something bigger, better and badder going on?  

Does the author handle language deftly?  Does she tell a complex, compelling story?  Does she demonstrate real psychological acuity with her characters, like Stendhal?  

Do their drives, desires and fears bleed out of the walls of the narrative without the writer yanking on my lapels or hitting me upside the head with a frozen halibut to draw attention to them?

Is it a good novel, a great novel, or a crap novel?

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