Remember when Myriam Gurba went solo, bare-fisted, up against a seven-figure, corporate-backed novel, American Dirt, laying down her analysis of the book’s embedded racism, white savior tropes, harmful and shallow Mexican stereotypes and more?
Gurba came out swinging.
She wrote:
Before giving me a chance to turn to chapter one, a publisher’s letter made me wince.
“The first time Jeanine and I ever talked on the phone,” the publisher gushed, “she said migrants at the Mexican border were being portrayed as a ‘faceless brown mass.’ She said she wanted to give these people a face.”
The phrase “these people” pissed me off so bad my blood became carbonated.
I looked up, at a mirror hanging on my tía’s wall.
It reflected my face.
In order to choke down Dirt, I developed a survival strategy. It required that I give myself over to the project of zealously hate-reading the book, filling its margins with phrases like “Pendeja, please.” That’s a Spanglish analogue for “Bitch, please.”
American Dirt was an Oprah pick. Gurba’s words went viral.
Now Gurba has a new collection of linked essays, including a critique of what she views as the fragile, entitled whiteness of Joan Didion, written with a simultaneous deep engagement with—and I’d say also an appreciation of—Didion’s work.
Creep.
Like sitting down with a brilliant conversationalist, I couldn’t put the book down.
Myriam Gurba has written a powerful, beautiful, complicated combination of themes, images and concerns, including gender, Mexico and the US, queerness, borders, the natural world and love, to name only a few.
This Wednesday evening I’ll have the honor of talking with Gurba at Portland’s massive, centrally located bookstore, Powell’s.
What: Myriam Gurba’s reading and conversation
Where: Powell’s on Burnside, downtown Portland
When: 9/13
Time: 7:00
Today I’m considering questions, thoughts, favorite details of her work.
Have you read her work? Rob Armstrong, who is here on Substack, sent along some great thoughts/questions (cool!)…and that inspires me to ask:
What questions might I ask her? Anything you’d like to ask, that I can pass along?
Cheers,
M