NEW EPISODE: Jeanine Cummins on confidence, identity and surviving the American Dirt controversy

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE:

My guest today is the bestselling novelist Jeanine Cummins. You might think you haven’t heard of her, but I’ll be pretty surprised if you haven’t heard of the book that catapulted her into the public eye, American Dirt. A story about a Mexican mother and son escaping to America after their entire family is massacred by a drug cartel, which Oprah said, “humanised the migration process in a way nothing else I’d ever felt or seen had.”

Jeanine was in her mid-40s, with two novels and a memoir under her belt, when American Dirt caught light. After a massive bidding war, the book was sold for millions of dollars in 38 countries. But when it was published, Jeanine found herself at the heart of a furore that questioned her right to have written it at all. As she puts it, she went from “golden child to pariah” in a matter of months.

Despite topping the bestseller lists on both sides of the atlantic and selling almost four million copies to date, for a long time Jeanine questioned whether she’d be able to write another word.

Now she has.

Speak to Me of Home is the story of three generations of women who are, like Jeanine, of Puerto Rican descent. It’s an engrossing cross-generational family saga and a heartfelt look at identity and what it means to belong.

Jeanine joined me from her home on the east coast to talk candidly about living through the eye of the storm, the meaning of home, developing empathy for our grandmothers, the life changing power of female friends, turning 50 and finally learning the holiness of No.

Listen to the full episode here:

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