In American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins, a bookstore manager is forced to flee Mexico in the wake of her journalist husband’s tell-all profile and finds her family among thousands of migrants seeking hope in America. The book, which has been the subject of both praise and controversy, is a fast-paced, character-driven story about the immigrant experience.
If you would like to read American Dirt you can place a hold on a print or digital copy here.
If you’ve read American Dirt and want more like it, or if you need a book to read while you’re waiting on your hold, check out these similar titles about the immigrant experience.
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
A novel about a family of four, on the cusp of fracture, who take a trip across America–a story told through varying points of view, and including archival documents and photographs.
Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
A sheltered girl and a teen maid forge an unlikely friendship that threatens to undo them both amid the violence of 1990s Columbia.
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
The stories of six Japanese mail-order brides whose new lives in early twentieth-century San Francisco are marked by backbreaking migrant work, cultural struggles, children who reject their heritage, and the prospect of wartime internment.
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
Sponsored by the poet Pablo Neruda to flee the violence of the Spanish Civil War, a pregnant widow and an army doctor unite in an arranged marriage, only to be swept up by the early days of World War II.
Tears of the Trufflepig by Fernando A. Flores
This surreal debut novel, set on the Texas-Mexico border, blends magical realism, sci-fi, and political parable to tell the story of an everyday man’s tumble into a bizarre and sinister criminal underworld.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez
When the sister who delighted their parents by her embrace of Mexican culture dies in a tragic accident, Julia, who longs to go to college and move into a home of her own, discovers that her sister may not have been as perfect as believed.
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
The suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant impacts the lives of a diverse cast of characters, including his jazz-composer daughter, an undocumented witness, and an Iraqi War veteran.
Afterlife by Julia Alverez
Reeling from her beloved husband’s sudden death in the wake of her retirement, an immigrant writer is further derailed by the reappearance of her unstable sister and an entreaty for help by a pregnant undocumented teen.
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
A wrenching emotional battle ensues between Soli, an undocumented Mexican single mother, and Kavya, an Indian-American chef who cannot have children, when Soli’s infant son is placed in Kavya’s care during an immigration detention.
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Crossing generations and continents, moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos, with profound wisdom, depth, insight and compassion, Khaled Hosseini writes about the bonds that define us and shape our lives, the ways in which we help our loved ones in need, how the choices we make resonate through history and how we are often surprised by the people closest to us.
Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas
The journalist and immigration-rights activist presents a memoir relating how he was sent from the Philippines to the U.S. as a child, his discovery of his undocumented status as a teenager, and his decision to reveal his immigration status publicly in 2011.
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