Jeanine Cummins Returns, Much To the Chagrin of Extremely-Online Lit Types

Your alarm clock goes off, awaking you from a fitful sleep. The red, old fashioned numbers read, “6:00,” as a Sonny and Cher song plays on the radio. No — it isn’t Groundhog Day; Jeanine Cummins has written yet another book about traumatized communities of color, and many people with opinions are not happy!

In the Poltergeist voice: “She’s baaaaaaaack!” pic.twitter.com/eGmk3VzL0H

— Myriam Gurba Serrano (@lesbrains) September 20, 2024

You will remember Cummins from before the pandemic, when her novel ‘American Dirt’ became simultaneously a laughingstock on Twitter and a best-selling-Oprah’s-book-club success. At the time, readers, writers and critics called the author out for cultural appropriation and her publisher, Flatiron Books, for putting their mega marketing dollars behind a white woman’s story of immigration.

Instead of shying away from trauma porn—although, why would she? Her book sold over three million copies as of last year — Cummins announced this week that her forthcoming work, ‘Speak to Me of Home’, will be an intergenerational tale of surviving a hurricane in Puerto Rico, out in May 2025. During the publicity and controversy around ‘American Dirt,’ Cummins shared that her grandmother was from Puerto Rico. That didn’t much help her case for telling an immigrant story, but makes sense for her new novel’s lsetting. 

In a statement about her new project, Cummins described its writing process as “a uniquely restorative experience,” continuing, “I always [endeavor] to write the book that might prompt readers to re-examine their convictions. In this case, I also wrote to rediscover my own.” ‘Speak to Me of Home’ will be published by Henry Holt and Company, a Macmilian imprint.

Unsurprisingly, Cummins’ critics aren’t excited about her new novel, much less that Cummins continues to get book deals. Book critic and podcaster Maris Kreizman wrote on Substack, “‘American Dirt’ has sold 3.5 million copies worldwide. The publishing industry is still 72.5% white,” echoing earlier arguments about Cummins’ hoarding of precious marketing dollars and interest away from own voices authors.

“Don’t forget how they marketed and promoted *that book*,” wrote Myriam Gurba Serrano — whose viral essay led the charge in calling out Cummins in 2020. “-Border wall centerpieces at a dinner party. -Barbed wire manicures. -The phrase ‘faceless brown masses’ to describe human beings.” Gurba linked to a photo of barbed wire wrapped around a centerpiece at a ‘American Dirt’ event.

“Since Jeanine Cummins is making her rounds again, it bears repeating that the problem isn’t so much writing about places that she has no connections to,” wrote @Ereditaaaa on X. “[I]t’s that she’s doing it horribly, with no respect or value to the people who live in the realities she writes about.

After the ‘American Dirt’ fall out, Cummins’ connections to Puerto Rico, as well as her husband’s emigration history from Ireland, were all trotted out as bona fide ties to the immigrant community. One article from that time included the parenthetical “Nevermind that many Irish immigrants came to the United States as indentured servants” to a description of Cummins’ husband. “Wow! I hadn’t realized Jeanine Cummins’s husband moved to the US in the mid-1600s and is now 370 years old,” wrote author Lincoln Michel on X. “#ownvoices: 400 year old Irish vampire.”

“When Jeanine Cummins resurfaces, this time, as the voice of Puerto Ricans during Hispanic Heritage Month of ALL MONTHS,” wrote @angelicajuliahh, including the meme:

When Jeanine Cummins resurfaces, this time, as the voice of Puerto Ricans during Hispanic Heritage Month of ALL MONTHS. pic.twitter.com/pJ5i8QWBkP

— Angelica (@angelicajuliahh) September 21, 2024

It’s going to be a long nine-month marketing push for ‘Speak to Me of Home,’ and, given Cummins’ track record with ‘American Dirt’, it will probably sell big. I personally hope the memes at least continue to be funny.

Jeanine Cummins author photo by Joe Kennedy.