‘American Dirt’s’ Jeanine Cummins Gets Best Revenge Possible

What a difference five years makes.

In 2020, author Jeanine Cummins appeared on top of the world as her novel “American Dirt” neared its release date. Both Oprah Winfrey and Stephen King sang its praises, and her publisher’s seven-figure deal confirmed her star status.

“American Dirt is an extraordinary piece of work, a perfect balancing act with terror on one side and love on the other. I defy anyone to read the first seven pages of this book and not finish it. The prose is immaculate, and the story never lets up…. On a micro scale—the story scale, where I like to live—it’s one hell of a novel about a good woman on the run with her beautiful boy. It’s marvelous.” – Stephen King

Then all woke hell broke loose.

That was then. Now, Cummins is preparing to release her follow-up book. What’s missing? Threats to her, her publisher or anyone daring to give her a platform. 

She’s just an author with a book to promote, another sign of Cancel Culture’s decline.

Readers are loving Speak to me of Home by @jeaninecummins , author of American Dirt.

‘Jeanine Cummins has once again proven herself to be a master storyteller’
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Comforting, deep and satisfying’
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐https://t.co/pkxishi69w pic.twitter.com/syx6xERn6n

— Headline Books (@headlinepg) April 17, 2025

“Speak to Me of Home,” available May 13, tells a multigenerational tale about a Puerto Rican woman who marries an American, relocates to St. Louis and has a daughter who buries her mother’s roots in order to fit in. The story follows three generations of women and the choices they make through the years.

The book’s reception is a far cry from what happened in 2020. “American Dirt” followed a Mexican woman and her son as they make the arduous trek to America following a tragic attack on their family.

The book’s momentum hit a fever pitch until a single woke critique upended her literary dreams. The review went viral. More furious missives followed. This is Cultural Appropriation, her critics cried. The author wasn’t Mexican so she couldn’t properly share this story.

Balderdash.

That thinking ignored how countless artists look beyond their own experiences to tell exciting tales that stretch beyond their worldviews. Imagine the classic books that would never have been written if authors followed that punitive thinking.

Criticism comes with the territory for authors and artists alike. Bad reviews are part of that process.

This was different. Ugly. Threatening. Censorial, even. The word “Latinx,” mostly discarded in 2025, did a lot of heavy lifting.

The New York Post’s Karol Markowicz captured the frenzy at the time.

The publisher canceled the book tour owing to physical threats against author Jeanine Cummins as well as bookstores where her events would be held; some events have been repurposed as “town halls” to discuss the brouhaha…

The central complaint is that Cummins, a white woman, wrote about something other than her own lived experience. There was once a time when we would call that kind of thing, you know, “fiction,” but now that’s unacceptable.

Markowicz noted that Cummins did her best to flex her progressive bona fides, both in the book and via interviews.

It wasn’t enough. It never is. You can’t be woke enough.

Winfrey, who added the book to her signature “club,” backpedaled. She hosted a forum to discuss the controversy without speaking forcefully on behalf of the author.

Cummins processed the tortured attacks on her and emerged stronger for it, according to her comments in a 2023 interview.

“We are at a frightening time culturally speaking, where there is a tremendous amount of self-censorship happening in the arts, specifically among fiction authors. I’m sure I’m in danger of self-censorship at times, but in a way I feel like I’m the freest writer in the U.S. because, they’ve done their worst, and I’m still here.”

She is. She has a new book out this month, and here’s betting many of her critics can’t say the same.