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Christian Dittus
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English
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AMERICAN DIRT

Jeanine Cummins

AMERICAN DIRT is the gripping story of Lydia Quixano Perez, a bookseller living a quiet but fulfilling life with her family in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She develops a deep bond with a sensitive, intelligent man who frequents her store, and cannot believe it when her journalist husband reveals the truth: her mysterious poetry-writing friend is the top leader of the drug cartel that rules their beloved city. The man goes by the name la Lechuza, the Owl, and he is unafraid of making gruesome and fatal spectacles of anyone who opposes him.

When Lydia's husband publishes a tell-all profile of the notorious leader, the Owl sends his gangsters to kill everyone they can find at a family gathering. Only Lydia and her eight-year-old son Luca survive, and they start running for their lives, imagining that it is only in the United Stated that they will be safe from the Owl's deadly reach.

This is just the first pages of the novel but the intensity of the story builds and builds from here. The mother and son discover that all they have already seen is just the beginning, and the road to el norte is more perilous than they could ever dream.

A tale of grim survivorship in the face of astronomical odds, AMERICAN DIRT explores the innermost hearts of people who have sacrificed everything for a glimmer of hope—that there might be a future for what they hold most dear.

Jeanine Cummins is the author of three books. Her true crime book A RIP IN HEAVEN was published by NAL in 2004 and was a bestseller that continues to sell today. Jeanine is half Puerto-Rican and speaks fluent Spanish, which allowed her to do extensive research in Mexico, lending AMERICAN DIRT its hard-won and impressive authenticity.

AMERICAN DIRT
Deutsch von Katharina Naumann
[TB Rowohlt 04/2020]
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Published 2020-01-01 by Flatiron Books

Comments

UK: Tinder Press; Russia: Sinbad; Italy: Feltrinelli; Korea: Sam & Parkers

Czech: Albatros/Domino; Polish: Niezwykle

Slovenia: Mladinska knjiga

I strive to write page turners because I love to read them, and it's been a long time since I turned pages as fast as I did with American Dirt. Its plot is tight, smart, and unpredictable. Its message is important and timely, but not political. Its characters are violent, compassionate, sadistic, fragile, and heroic. It is rich in authenticity. Its journey is a testament to the power of fear and hope and belief that there are more good people than bad. --John Grisham

Croatia: Znanje; Hungary: Helikon; Israel: Achuzat Bayit; Netherlands: Mozaiek; Romania: Litera

France: Philippe Rey; Japan: Hayakawa; Spain: Ediciones B; US Spanish: Vintage;

Arabic: Fawasel

Imperative Entertainment, the production company behind Clint Eastwood's The Mule and Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World have acquired the film rights to AMERICAN DIRT. The writer behind Leonardo DiCaprio's Blood Diamond, Charles Leavitt, is set to write the script. Read more...

Ukraine: Vivat;

Film rights sold to Imperative Entertainment.