title: Dirt: A Novel
author:  David Vann 
description: Searing. . . . Vann has an extravagantly literary sensibility, and his novel is full of echoes: One thinks of the stately inevitability of classical tragedy, of Chekhovs lost souls, of the hallucinatory quality of Faulkners rural fantasia, and of Stephen Kings depictions of an unraveling mind. (<i>Washington Post Book World</i>)<br /><br />Theres a lot of humor here, of a very dark vein. And Vann, a Guggenheim fellow, excels at sly truths (<i>Boston Globe</i>)<br /><br />Brilliant narrative. . . . This is a novel of violence, destruction and ruin. There is no salvation. And yet Mr. Vanns soaring writing carries it forward-a reminder of the beauty that can grace even the beastliest things. (<i>The Economist</i>)<br /><br />His language is sharply funny, even as his characters enact a tragedy of Greek proportions. (<i>The New Yorker</i>)<br /><br />The book is wonderfully twisted, but a sinister humor keeps things from getting too bleak. What begins as a literary family drama turns slowly into a heady horror story, part Stephen King and part Immanuel Kant. (<i>The Daily Beast</i>)<br /><br />Brave and brilliant. . . . <i>Dirt</i> is showing us something unexpected, and unexpectedly stunning . . . Vanns details here, as always, are pitch-perfect. (<i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>)<br /><br />Haunting. (<i>Financial Times</i>)<br /><br />Vann has a remarkable gift for capturing the harsh realities of a family held together by hate and violence. Riveting and impossible to put down. (<i>Library Journal</i> (starred review))<br /><br />Multi-award winner Vann writes undeniably powerful prose, whether he is blithely satirizing transcendental meditation, or meticulously detailing Galens descent into madness. (<i>Booklist</i>)<br /><br />David Vann excels at writing about the darkest side of the human heart. . . . Vann fully exhibits the writers chops that served him well in his earlier works, and he again plumbs the darker parts of the human psyche. This novel is simultaneously disturbing and haunting. (<i>Denver Post</i>)
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  American Dirt : A Novel (2020)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Cummins, Jeanine
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  FEAR KEEPS THEM RUNNING.
  
  
  
  
  
  HOPE KEEPS THEM ALIVE.
  
  
  
  
  
  Vivid, visceral, utterly compelling, AMERICAN DIRT is the first novel to
  explore the experience of attempting to illegally cross the US-Mexico border.
  
  
  
  
  
  Yesterday, Lydia had a bookshop.
  
  
  
  
  
  Yesterday, Lydia was married to a journalist.
  
  
  
  
  
  Yesterday, she was with everyone she loved most in the world.
  
  
  
  
  
  Today, her eight-year-old son Luca is all she has left.
  
  
  
  
  
  For him, she will carry a machete strapped to her leg.
  
  
  
  
  
  For him, she will leap onto the roof of a high speed train.
  
  
  
  
  
  For him, she will find the strength to keep running.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images_00001.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2019 Jeanine Cummins
  
  
  The right of Jeanine Cummins to be identified as t