How Not to Write a Book about a Minority Experience | The Walrus

American Dirt was still a stunning commercial success-it has spent three months and counting on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Critically, however, it's been a disaster. As the social media flak and denunciatory essays piled up, a common theme emerged: Cummins and Flatiron could have sidestepped much of the backlash if they'd hired a sensitivity reader to make sure the book's representations were accurate. "[Cummins is] a seasoned writer, and American Dirt is her fourth book," wrote Aya de Leon in Guernica. "In her author's note, she expressed concern that she might fall short: ‘I was worried that, as a nonimmigrant and non-Mexican, I had no business writing a book set almost entirely in Mexico, set entirely among immigrants,' . . . But it never occurred to her to pay someone to make sure she got it right? In the publishing industry, sensitivity readers are common knowledge. With a seven-figure advance, Cummins had plenty of resources to hire one."